Who Killed Tony Soprano?

 

The famous cut to black ending of the HBO hit series the Sopranos has had many people watching wondering a few things: 1) did my cable TV just cut out? 2) after realizing the cable was fine, they wondered what happened? And 3) after they figured out Tony almost certainly got killed, who did it?

Throughout the whole series, Tony was never short of enemies, and living that life of mobster crime, danger lurked at any corner. But surprisingly, even though most of his own crew had been wiped out by then, Tony's men were able to pull off a hit on Tony's main enemy, Phil Leotardo, who got a splitting headache, thus crushing the competition.

So if not Phil, who of Tony's enemies and frenemies would have wanted him dead after Phil was gone? Was it Butchie? Possibly revenge for whacking Phil? Nope, he made a deal behind Phil's back, and wouldn't have cared about Phil getting out of the picture. Tony's other enemies in New York, perhaps the Luppertazzi clan? Most of that crew was wiped out. The man who remained was never that antagonistic with Tony's crew, nor was he the sharpest knife in the drawer to mastermind a hit of a rival boss.

That leaves us to: was it an inside job? Did one of Tony's own men have him killed, for reasons totally separate from any of the rivalries? Who was left at this point? Throughout the show, Tony was well respected and rarely did any of his men go behind his back or disrespect him. When it happened, Tony took care of it. Any mutiny was nipped in the bud. His number 2 guy was not ambitious and in fact never felt like he was meant to be the main boss anyway, so Silvio never would have had Tony killed.

A major clue that it was an inside job was the Member's Only jacket.This jacket was worn by one of Tony's guys Eugene, who was a capable and loyal soldier who did what he had to do even when he didn't really want to. At a certain point, Eugene wanted to retire, even offering some of his large inheritance to Tony, as a way to buy his way out. His asks Tony, who needs time to think it through, and eventually delegates to Silvio to give him a “no go”, since he's too valuable to the crew. A distraught Eugene, realizing he can't have the life he wanted, took his own life.

In the last episode, Made in America, there were several characters in the restaurant, but one sticks out like a sore thumb, and that is Members Only guy. Not only does the camera stay on this man several times, but his expression is one of tension and worry. He looks around, goes to the rest room. Soon after, cut to black. We can assume the worst for Tony, who, as Bobby suggested, didn't even hear it when it happened.

Why the Members Only jacket? I simply can't believe that David Chase, creator of the Sopranos, would have a man come in totally coincidentally wearing the EXACT same jacket that Eugene wore. This man almost seemed like Eugene's ghost who came back to get revenge for ruining Eugene's life. And while the supernatural is an occasional thing on the show, including hints on reincarnation, we don;t need to delve into that here. The point is that this man shot and killed Tony. He wore the same jacket one of Tony's crew wore, which is a clue that this man was hired by one of Tony's crew. Then the real question is, who ordered the hit?

So who had the motive? 2 of Tony's crew could have had motive. Let's talk about Paulie. Paulie was always the guy whose loyalties were questionable. When Tony was in the hospital, it killed him to have to give a cent to Tony's wife, which was expected of him to take care of her if Tony was ever incapacitated. He resented Tony, and seemed to want to sell him up the river the first chance he got. He was a member of the old guard going back to Johnny Boy Soprano's days of ruling North Jersey with Junior. He was older than Tony, and may have felt Tony received special treatment and nepotism. While Tony lived in a mansion, Paulie lived in a small apartment. Tony had antagonized Paulie, asking him over and over if he was the one to tell Johnny Sac about the joke about Ginny, which set in motion a period of struggle with New York. When he went on the boat with Tony, he had flash backs of Big Pussy's murder on the boat and likely wondered if he faced a similar fate. This fate could happen any time, and for Paulie, Tony could have been a ticking time bomb. He had become reckless with his gambling and leadership. Paulie might have made a deal with New York to get Tony out of the way.

All that said, it wasn't Paulie. Why? Because, drum roll, it was.... Patsy. That's right, Patsy Parisi. Philly Parisi was Patsy's twin brother, who was murdered by orders of Tony. And Patsy knew it, or at least he eventually finds out. He drunkenly almost gets his revenge by aiming a gun at Tony, but instead gets relief, by.... relieving himself in the Soprano family's pool. Patsy bottles up his feelings and gets back to work, getting by in life working for the man who murdered his brother. But that can't stay bottled up forever. So he hires a semi-pro to kill Tony, someone from way out of town. He's not a pro because he came in right in front of AJ, which meant Tony would have spotted him, probably not even knowing who AJ was or what he looked like. He nervously looks around, which might have tipped Tony off that he was going to do something bad, and then goes to the restroom a la Godfather, and retrieves a pistol and cablammo while Journey plays "Don't stop believing."

If you don't believe me, seriously ask yourself: Why does it even matter? There could many theories on who had T killed. It could have been Paulie, it could have been New York. But for us the story had ended, and whether we saw him killed or he got killed months later, sadly, it was likely coming for Tony, so who got to pull the trigger, it didn't really matter.

So keep guessing, but don't stop believin'. 

 Full video: https://youtu.be/Dqckkca9Gns