Im new to these boards, so if this has been discussed before, it would be great if someone could just post a link to that discussion...

But the thing I was thinking about was Meadow parking the car. She fails both the first and second time, but succeeds the third. What I was thinking about was if that may symbolize the hit on Tony. Two times earlier has there been attempts on Tonys life as I can remember, and two times Meadow fails to park her car. The third time, Meadow succeeds. Is it possible that Meadows attempts to park her car may symbolize the attempts on Tonys life? And that Meadows succeeding at the third attempt may symbolize that this time, the third time, the hit will be succesful?

Its just a thought, but as I said, I havent been on these boards earlier, and therefore I dont know if this has allready been discussed.....

Personally I take the parking attempts as a suggestion that Meadow is not completely infected by this family and their sins. She certainly is trying given her breakup with Finn and her new relationship within the family. But she's always had a bit of hope and that she tries so hard to do the right thing is rather different from the way the rest of them act.

Not bad thoughts, Detective (nor were yours, Mike), but I think Meadow's repeated parking attempts were just to kill some time - Just a way for Chase to stretch out the scene so that the lyrics "Don't stop -" fell at the right point. Now that the scene is there, there's nothing wrong with looking deeper into it for some meaning, but I think it's inclusion certainly originated in an attempt to resolve a timing issue first and foremost.

I went on The Sopranos On Location tour last week and the tour guide Marc Baron who has worked as an extra on the show said many in the business believe it to be a gag at how in the movies or on tv the character always gets the parking space they want!!

I hope it isn't as shallow as that but maybe it is!

hev9078 wrote:I went on The Sopranos On Location tour last week and the tour guide Marc Baron who has worked as an extra on the show said many in the business believe it to be a gag at how in the movies or on tv the character always gets the parking space they want!!

I hope it isn't as shallow as that but maybe it is!

Thats hilarious hev! i never really thought about it before- but yeah- they DO always get the perfect parking spots!

hev9078 wrote:I hope it isn't as shallow as that but maybe it is!

Hey, this explanation works for me. I'm with badabellisima, that's hilarious!

At the start of the series Tony fears he will lose his family. As we see in this last seen, he has his whole family. The irony of the ending is that his family staying with him is the worst thing for them. By not losing his family, he has put them in harm's way. Meadow almost got away but in the end came back to her father.

kubkins wrote:At the start of the series Tony fears he will lose his family. As we see in this last seen, he has his whole family. The irony of the ending is that his family staying with him is the worst thing for them. By not losing his family, he has put them in harm's way. Meadow almost got away but in the end came back to her father.

kubkins, you're making me remember that short but very touching scene in GFI or GFII where Michael is sitting by the fireplace with his mother and she talks to him about how you can never lose your family... Even if Meadow "got away", i think Tony would always keep trying to keep a thread of communication open to her. btw, an old post on this subject of Meadow's parking problems mentions how when filming this scene, David Chase told Jaimie Sigler (Meadow) to try and fail to park three times before getting it right. He didn't explain why, just told her how he wanted it to be, apparently. Another poster was saying how that kind of latest deluxe model Lexus has a self-park feature, so Chase could've been trying to poke fun at that, or was making some other point as well.

Universal Polymath wrote:Not bad thoughts, Detective (nor were yours, Mike), but I think Meadow's repeated parking attempts were just to kill some time - Just a way for Chase to stretch out the scene so that the lyrics "Don't stop -" fell at the right point. Now that the scene is there, there's nothing wrong with looking deeper into it for some meaning, but I think it's inclusion certainly originated in an attempt to resolve a timing issue first and foremost.

I think that's unlikely. The whole episode and particularly that final scene is so meticulously planned that I can't see something being "thrown in" for filler. When I first saw it years ago I immediately wondered why we were spending so much time watching parking and what the intention was. I believe there has to be some significance.

TheJacket wrote:I think that's unlikely. The whole episode and particularly that final scene is so meticulously planned that I can't see something being "thrown in" for filler. When I first saw it years ago I immediately wondered why we were spending so much time watching parking and what the intention was. I believe there has to be some significance.

I agree, Jacket, I think that it was all meticulously engineered. The final scene is a mini-movie in its own right, with lots of surrealistic elements detaching it from the normal reality and narration in which Sopranos normally runs outside dream sequences. The decor has been dramatically changed on the two walls of Holsten's that we can see, the back wall has a board tinted orange with symbols related to death and the afterlife (which Tony chooses to turn his back to), the onion ring/viaticum/communion ritual that just would not happen in any real life, the desaturated colors, the Norman Rockwell picture-perfect demographics of cub scouts with a leader who looks like Phil Leotardo and a young couple in love over a malt at the soda shop, and otherwise a cross-section of non-Italian America, and even a flipping of which doors lead to a men's room and a ladies' room in the real Holsten's. Meadow's parking is designed to build suspense and raise the prospect that she will be a victim of foul play as viewers watch the clock knowing that the series will end in a moment. All of it is tinged with surrealism - and though the episode began with a dirge and a coffin shot, it is ending with communion and an anthem to never give up hope. Much of that convinces me that the guy in the Members Only jacket was just one more of many false leads used to build suspense and the notion that Tony was at the verge of death. David Chase had many options had he chosen to end the series with a death but he chose to end it with no visible harm to anyone, with communicant Tony Soprano in a state of grace, and with Meadow, who could not take communion as a Catholic using birth control, on the threshold of joining her family. Chase left it just as he said, with trends in view so that it did not matter whether Tony died that night or another time - and from that I infer that Tony's death in Holsten's was not his point. Against all odds, after the destruction of his criminal family, knowing that he would be indicted and arrested and probably sent to prison in short order, after Dr. Melfi abandoned him, it was time for him to transform - and he took communion with his family - or so much of it as could join him. That being the end of the Tony we knew, and encouraged by the anthem playing, the series ended with Tony's personal fate unclear.