re: So I just finished my first watch through of Sopranos.. and I don’t know what to think

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The ambiguity of the ending was perfect.

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Check out The Americans if you haven’t at this point. Extremely well written. Satisfying finale (maybe one of the best ones I’ve seen).

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The Americans is a top 5 show for me. I was a child of the 80s, so I’m biased, but it uses music better than just about any show ever.

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The only part I never really got was the Meadow parking shite

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It's supposed to be symbolism for the attempts at Tony's life. She fails to park the first two times to the same way the first two attempts to whack tony failed.

She was successful on the third attempt...

This was also the only episode with no music in the credits. We were seeing everything from Tony's perspective. He gone.

Also, the ambiguity is gone considering David chase outwardly has stated that Tony died in the finale.

There are several good YouTube breakdown highlighting all the symbols in that last scene.

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The only part I never really got was the Meadow parking shite. The time it took her to park only matters if the whole family at the table got whacked, which would have been highly unusual.

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It built a lot of tension, for sure. Even the bell is a literary device in this instance.

The bell is the biggest clue as to what happened. Bell rings, Tony looks up. It happens over and over during the scene. On the last time, bell rang, fade to black.

The dual interpretation is that the audience sees Tony get hit from Tony's perspective, "You never see it coming", as well as Chase metaphorically "whacking" the audience - as we will not see what happens next.

My gut take the first time is was it was ambiguous and that Tony has to look over his shoulder and be paranoid for the rest of his time as boss (until jail or cemetery). A detailed analysis of the scene is pretty solid for Member's Only guy going to the bathroom and then returning with a hidden gun (like Michael Corleone) to whack Tony in front of his family.

One of the later episodes of Season 5 "The Test Dream" has Tony in a dream where he tries to retrieve a gun from behind a toilet tank very similar to the one from which Michael Corleone retrieved the gun to kill Sollozzo Capt. McClusky. Further echoing that hit from The Godfather - in that same dream:



The first episode of the final season was named "Members Only."

Finally the repeated instances of, "You never hear it coming" was one of the most obvious bits of foreshadowing that go back to very early episodes.