Literary License

Who's gonna fall? Who's gonna flourish? New Jersey Novelists issue their verdicts and reveal their visions of how the finale should unfold.

Mary Higgins Clark
Best-selling author of 36 books. I Heard That Song Before, published by Simon & Schuster, is due in stores this April.

They mustn’t murder Tony. Maybe he can go to prison for a few years, but the audience likes him too much to see him die. It would be an awful downer. And when the reruns start, it would make them harder to watch. Who wants to watch a show where they already know how things end?

Anthony Jr. has no redeeming qualities, but maybe he’ll wake up one morning and say, “Gee whiz, Dad. I know now what you’ve tried to do for me.”

I would also like to see Tony and Carmela’s marriage survive. They truly care for each other. They’re joined at the hip. And it’s one of the things that make Tony sympathetic. In his own way, he’s a good husband and father.

But Christopher is a weasel. And he should get what’s coming to him.

 

Valerie Wilson Wesley
Author of Dying in the Dark and other books in the Tamara Hayle Mystery series. The next installment is due in the fall.

Carmela should walk out on Tony. She’ll never be a whole person if she stays, and I believe she already knows that. A.J. should be drawn into Tony’s world and wind up dead. Tony’s grief over the loss of his marriage and his son would make him understand his part in both events—his responsibility for them—and eventually he could claim the sorrow of what he has done. But we like Tony too much to see him punished that way. And I think David Chase will leave us wanting more. Carmela might separate from Tony. I believe she’s going to discover Tony’s part in Adriana’s murder, but she’ll go back and the marriage will survive. His children will survive, and no matter how much Tony might desire a life without crime, he probably will stay in the Mob and maybe even keep seeing his shrink.

Major characters are going to die. I am not sure of all the casualties, but Christopher is dead meat.

 

Anthony Bruno
Author of the Bad series of crime novels, he is currently finishing a nonfiction book about the IRS’s pursuit of Al Capone.

Most real-life Mob bosses end up in prison. And this is where Tony Soprano’s story arc will probably take him. But Tony, being more self-aware than the average don, will make the most of his situation by cooperating with the Feds in order to put the screws to the bad elements in his crime family. He’ll also lie to the government and tell them he has information about a terrorist cell, stringing them along so he can accomplish his goals. He’ll take great satisfaction in finally being able to make things right in his world, something he’s been wanting to do since he went into therapy.

“I’d also like to see a showdown between Tony and Christopher. They are spiritual father and son, and it’s time for the son to battle the father for control of the family. Tony, realizing that his real son, A.J., will never make anything of himself, sets him up with a car dealership and prays that the kid has seen The Godfather enough times that he won’t try to pull a Fredo Corleone. When Tony goes to prison, Meadow ditches her fiancé and comes back to Jersey to run the family with the guidance of Uncle Junior. Adriana’s ghost continues to haunt Carmela; she runs off to Italy to take her vows as a nun and, she hopes, cleanse her soul. But just as she’s about to take her final vows, she sees Furio in the crowd with love in his eyes.

I’d like to see Silvio follow Hesh and get into the music business, promoting Jersey rock bands. He’ll pioneer new territory, introducing payola to the Internet and shaking down computer nerds who don’t feature his bands on their sites. And finally, the Russian whom Paulie Walnuts shot in the head but couldn’t kill in the Pine Barrens, back in Season 3, returns and—O, Madonn’—he’s not happy.

 

Carol Higgins Clark
Best-selling author of thirteen books. Laced, her tenth Regan Reilly mystery, is due in April from Scribner.

It would be most dramatic if Tony died, but that would mean David Chase was putting commercial considerations aside and ending this once and for all. I don’t think that will happen. That would be too much punishment for Tony and Carmela. The truth is, even though Tony is villainous, we want him to survive.

Some major characters will die at the beginning of the season, but I think it would be too dark to harm any of Tony’s children.

I think Tony and Carmela will stay together—they’re stuck with each other, and we want them together. Let’s say they open an Italian restaurant. This would be a place where you never dare question your bill—you just pay. Uncle Junior would be the featured entertainer, and pretty soon the rest of the family would start working there. The restaurant would attract the most interesting clientele in New Jersey, and if you wanted to continue the show, then the restaurant could become the “in” place for Mob hits.

One unique feature of Tony and Carmela’s eatery would be that the place is haunted—by the ghost of Adriana. She would show up whenever Christopher was around. In fact, she would begin to follow him around like a second wife. And then maybe the two of them could move over to the HBO series Big Love, where it is not uncommon for men to have many wives.

It would be most intriguing if the story were left open-ended—if it got people talking and left us wanting more. But whatever happens, I’m sure David Chase will find a way to surprise us.

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