These are two scenes that, I think, illustrate Tony's two only endings. Regardless of where you sit on the "was he killed at Holstein's?" question, there's almost no question that he met either that fate OR indictment and trial with enough RICO predicates and the high likelihood such a trial puts him away. (disclosure, I'm in the Tony was killed camp but I embrace the ambiguity).
Mink visits the Bing to tell Tony of the likelihood of indictment and the fact that someone is talking (Tony knows it's Carlo which we later learn to be true). This scene show's Mink's relative incompetence and Tony's obvious frustration.
Mink's incompetence and distracted focus
- Mink can't get the ketchup out of the bottle to put on his burger
- As he's trying, he looks up at the camera monitor and watches a danger moving topless down the hall
- He references the gun charge right after saying that there's an 80-90% chance of indictment. Remember, he mocked the gun charge when Essex County picked it up. It got tossed and then the Feds rolled that into a RICO as a predicate. Mink was short-sighted regarding the importance of the gun charge and Tony actually alluded to that earlier in the season.
Tony's Frustration
- He is visibly annoyed as Mink is talking
- His frustration peaks after several attempts by Mink to get the ketchup out of the bottle, he grabs the bottle from him
- After that show of frustration subsides, Mink reminds Tony of expectations of being a mob boss "not like we haven't envisioned this day". I mean, he's right but it's an expression of defeat and absolving himself of his role in not being able to counsel Tony away from this situation (again, implying incompetence).
- Mink says "trials are there to be won". Tony lets out a close-eyed half sigh/laugh expressing a subconscious lack of confidence in Mink in such a trial.
To end the scene and transition to Tony's "other" possible only end, Mink again stares up at the camera monitor to see two dancers talking topless.
A monitor starts the next scene but it's a heart rate and vital signal monitor in a hospital, Sil's hospital room. Between monitor beeps we can faintly hear a commercial on his room TV. The commercial describes a kitchen tool called the "Magic Bullet".
Tony walks into the room as Gabriella is filing Sil's toenails. She leaves and Tony stands in silence. The TV program ("Little Miss Sunshine") comes back on after the commercials. Tony looks up at the TV just before a little girl in the show lets out a loud and piercing scream. DC devotes 8 seconds to showing the scene from the show. It's possible, considering how DC decided to show this, that the little girl was a proxy for the scream we never heard from Meadow as she entered Holstein's right as Tony was being murdered because we were in Tony's perspective and he would have never heard it. Regardless of the significance, or not, of that 8 second clip, the scene shows Tony's only other possible ending, being shot.
Return to “Episode 6.21: Made in America”
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