I was startled and frustrated by the ending. At first, I thought my cable had cut out. I still don't like it, but it only makes sense if Tony got whacked without ever seeing it coming. Phil Leotardo's death was foreshadowing: Phil never had any inkling that his killer was standing there then blammo!
There was a lot of building suspense in the scene in the diner. We kept seeing these shots of the guy sitting alone at the counter, the other guy sitting alone at a table... cutting to Meadow trying to park... cutting back to the table. A couple hip-hop types enter. Tension was building. Whenever the door jangles, Tony looks up then we cut to see who's coming in. When Meadow finally parks and runs across the street, we see Tony and hear the door jangle and instead of switching to Tony's perspective seeing Meadow enter the diner, we cut to blackness and silence.
Why? Because Tony got whacked at that moment. His perspective was blackness and silence.
What's the alternative? That life just went on for the little gangster family? If so, why would any competent director build up all that tension then just pull the plug? If that's all the director is trying to convey why not just dolly the camera back and give us a wide shot of the diner which fades to credits while the music continues as it always has with every other ending of a Sopranos episode since day one? It just doesn't make sense that Chase would make such a departure this one time without intending to convey the idea that something sudden and abrupt and unexpected happened. Something which we associate with blackness and silence... death.
I think the point of just ending it is that just like Phil dropping to the ground, Just like Tony (I think), there is no warning, no explanation, no "what happened next". Like Bobby said, in this season's first episode and in the flashback in the second to last episode, "you probably never see it coming." Ironically - both Bobby and Sil did see it coming. But not Phil, and not, I think, Tony.
I still think the ending sucks - because it is ambiguous. If I were David Chase, and if I'd decided to do the cut to black thing, I would at least have tagged on some kind of epilogue after the credits where we hear Carmella or Meadow screaming, and see a figure rushing out the exit to a waiting car.
If that really is Tony being killed, which I think it probably is, the reason not to tag an epilogue shot is perspective. The show has really always been about Tony and we only see other characters without Tony around to give us knowledge of stuff that’s going to effect Tony’s life. Once Tony is dead there’s nothing left that’s going to effect it. Also there’s the problem of where to draw the line, if you show Carm and Meadow reacting why not Melfie and Paulie and other survivors. I like the clean cutoff, boom, shows over. It’s not like we haven’t seen plenty of other reactions to dead mobsters over the course of the show, we know how it works.
"It was revenge for Billy Batts, and a lot of other things. ... It was real greaseball s--t."
Well it was the same actor, that got whacked in the middle of the episode that played Batts in Goodfellas.