Even those who never sat down to watch The Sopranos likely have some familiarity with its controversial finale. Airing in 2007 to cap off six seasons of historic television, the finale, "Made in America," infamously cut to black with such abruptness that many viewers suspected a fault in their cable TV during the 10 seconds of pitch black that preceded the final credits. Taking place in the aftermath of a brutal gang war as Tony Soprano sat down with his family in a diner to enjoy a meal as he had dozens of times before in the show, the scene seemingly built up toward Tony's execution at the hands of an assassin within the diner.

Though the cut to black comes before any such execution occurs on screen, there are several indications sprinkled throughout the series and the final scene itself that cut through the ambiguity. When considering these factors, it's absolutely clear that the man in the Members Only Jacket assassinated Tony after coming out of the diner's bathroom.

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"Everything Just Goes Black"

While the final cut to black seems abrupt in the moment and serves as the keystone to every argument about the finale's ambiguity, it actually comes as the result of clever foreshadowing throughout the final season of the show. An earlier episode has Tony Soprano sharing a small boat and a private conversation with one of his underlings, Bobby Bacala, as the two discuss what their final fates may be. Bobby ruminates on what the experience of dying is like, saying “At the end, you probably don’t hear anything, everything just goes black."

The line gets repeated again for emphasis in the penultimate episode of the series as Tony thinks back on it, adding further emphasis to the interpretation. Similarly, Tony's consigliere Silvio experiences much the same suddenness when he continues a conversation with a man who was just shot, taking several moments of drowned-out noise for the reality to sink in. The finale's cut to black conveyed the exact experience of death the show had built up previously -- far from ambiguous, it's exactly what death was said to be like in the show itself.

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Members Only

The main suspected assassin that analysts identify in the diner scene is the suspicious man in the Members Only jacket sitting near Tony and his family's table. He repeatedly casts suspicious looks over at the Sopranos and the camera keeps cutting back to him for emphasis. When he's last seen he passes the table to go into the bathroom, where, were he to exit with a gun, he would have a perfect shot at Tony as the crime boss turned away to look for his daughter's arrival at the entrance.

But more than that, the Members Only jacket itself gestures to great significance by its inclusion. In the episode "Members Only," the character Eugene Pontecorvo is mocked for wearing the jacket, and later commits suicide after Tony denies his request to retire from the mob. This is the same episode where Tony is shot and nearly dies. To further ring home the lethal significance of the jacket, one of Silvio's would-be assassins is wearing the same jacket in the same incident that put the consigliere in a coma. The jacket is very clearly an intentional choice, and there can be no reason behind it other than to indicate its wearer's deadly intentions.

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A Space Odyssey

2001 Space Odyssey

The editing of the final scene in the diner receives tremendous scrutiny even after almost a decade and a half since its debut. As it creates a rhythm of cutting from the sound of the bell above the diner's door to showing Tony's point of view as he sees the next patron of the diner, the editing creates tension that the cut to black disrupts. But even more notable is the visual reference to the famous ending of the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Just as Tony enters the diner at the start of the scene, he looks across the restaurant to the table he will soon sit at. The camera cuts back to his face, and then once again to the table across the restaurant as though Tony is seeing himself moments later. Similarly, 2001's David Bowman experiences much the same effect as he looks across a room and sees himself at the end of his life. But whereas Bowman is elderly and infirm on his deathbed, Tony's end of life takes place mere moments later. It's an extremely subtle bit of camera work, but considering the titanic reputation of the film, the reference is too clear to be a coincidence.

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The Godfather

However, there are movies that more directly relate to The Sopranos which merit its reference, and chief among all of them is The Godfather. Recurring explicitly in dialogue throughout the series, The Sopranos as a project not only responds consciously to the impact The Godfather had from a thematic standpoint, but the characters also bring it up, reference it and model their own lives around it as an ideal they hope to embody.

Of particular note is that just earlier in the final season Tony's son AJ mentions that Tony's favorite scene from The Godfather is when Michael Corleone kills Sollozzo and the Chief. In the film, the slaying occurs in a restaurant after Corleone goes into the bathroom right beforehand. The last time the man in the Members Only Jacket is seen is when he goes into the restaurant bathroom, and there could be no more beautifully ironic way for Tony's life to end than as the victim in a scene he adored.

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Dream Interpretations

The Sopranos eating dinner in the final episode

The show's predilection for extended dream sequences often allowed the story, already entrenched in psychological significance and metaphor, to further explore its characters' psyches through potent symbolism that the final diner scene is rife with. Tony's near-death experience absorbed much of the episode "Mayham" with a dream sequence that culminated in Tony refusing to enter a large mansion that blatantly symbolized death. Similar large mansions are seen in the paintings and pictures on the wall of the diner, looming over Tony as he reviews his menu.

As early as Season 2, another character, Christopher Moltisanti, had his only brush with death with a symbolically potent dream. He delivered the message to Tony that the ghosts of the deceased said that "three o'clock" would have great significance for Tony. It's notable that Tony's three o'clock is exactly the direction from which his Members Only assassin would approach from the bathroom as Tony looks in the opposite direction for Meadow's arrival. Every little detail matters in a show as genius as The Sopranos, and when it comes to that final scene, every little detail points to the definitive conclusion that Tony died as violently as he lived.

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