Granted that, yes, I thought the ending sucked big time too when I first saw it. I found this message posted on a message board that makes perfect sense, and makes David Chase look like a fucking genius! Here it is:
" Tony Soprano was killed....
In fact, the ending was genius if you've paid attention to the show or are just a fan of well developed well thought out plots that all tie together and have the memory of a champ to remember it all the ending was simple, he got killed, but let me tell y'all why and explain in detail... There was 4 people in the room total who had a reason to kill tony.....
The two black guys were paid before to kill Tony when his mother put a hit out on him but he was clipped in the ear in Season One.
The trucker at the booth near Tony was the brother of a Trucker, Christopher killed in DVD player robbery. We last saw the brother when he went to identify his dead brother's body.
And lastly, from the earlier seasons, the Italian man who was sitting at the counter stool, who the camera kept focusing in on, is Nikki Leotardo, Phil Leotardo's nephew. He was in one of the early season episodes where Phil and Tony have a sit down....
Here is where the genius comes in....
When Tony walks into the Holston's, you see the camera focus on him, then it switches to his perspective, and you see him looking @ the booth hes gonna sit at...
Then the camera switches back to Tony's face, then it once again
switches to his perspective, and it shows him looking @ the door and looking @ the people come in..... Everytime the door opens the chimes sound.......
Carmela walks in, Chimes.
AJ walks in, Chimes.
This all happens while Meadow is parallel parking, still trying to get inside the restaurant....
At this point the camera switches back Nikki Leotardo who goes in the bathroom...
Then it goes to a scene where Meadow finally parks and starts running into the diner...
The door is about to open, Tony looks up...
and No Chimes...
No Music...
Everything just goes black...
In one of the early episodes of the Sopranos, Tony is talking with Bobby about what it must feel like to die.
Bobby says, "at the end, you probably don't hear anything, everything just goes black!"
This idea was revisited in the second to last episode during the
last seconds of it, when Tony is about to go to sleep and he flashes back to the memory of him and Bobby on the boat... "You probably don't hear anything everything just goes black"
So in the end, the Journey song was playing, the chimes on the door sounded but when Meadow came in, someone killed Tony.
This is the reason you didn't hear or see sh!t when he died.... it was from his perspective... and everything went black, then the credits.
Bada Bing!! "