In the end he’s vulnerable again, and perhaps even he knows that’s where he’s supposed to be. The ending, like Tony’s existential question, is driven by the absurdity of life. We’re on the edge of our seats watching Meadow parking a car. Death comes to innocent and guilty, it comes from enemies and it comes from nature and it comes from mistakes. Every second of every day is a potential death for us, but we live anyway, in the face of such threats. David Chase has brilliantly illustrated this for us; life continues despite constant threats, and despite absolute absurdity. Some win, some lose, but we all share this existence, and with it that core problem.

That’s what his life is like, and has been like 24/7. As Carm said earlier this season “Is this it?” Yes, it is, this is Tony Soprano’s life, good to the last drop. And despite the fact that all of those people could be his killer, he takes the time to put on a song for his wife and kids, to reflect briefly and live his life like he’s invincible even though he is at the most vulnerable point he’s ever been at - classic Tony.

Chase doesn’t write Mob stories, he writes good stories that happen to involve the mob. This ending, this whole season, has been a look at a family in existential crisis - their value systems and beliefs turned on their ear, forced to question what really matters, and what they’re willing to risk to get that. The Phil-Tony, New York-New Jersey beef is a macrocosm of the sudden shuffle of the lives of the Soprano family - things thrown into chaos and despair.

Like characters out of Dostoyevsky or Sartre they try to meet a compromise, resolving their new despair at the world and the choices they have to make with previous notions of success and the American dream. They seek to find a place where they can feel safe again. AJ, deepest in this nausea, eventually picks up the answer his parents have given him: he turns his back to the knowledge he’s gained of the world in crisis in favor of a life of ignorant excess and capitalist success. Meadow has, it seems, grounded herself as she has been her whole life: to a man. In the early seasons she lives and dies by her father’s affection, before eventually moving on from boyfriend to boyfriend, accepting his value system in place of the one she was rasised with. All in all, she’s learned to gain her father’s affection as well, by appealing to the one thing that will always win his heart: money. She can rationalze her new career in criminal defense as helping minorities, while at the same time impressing her parents with the money she’ll be earning. Carmella has, as always, dodged her existential worries by living a life that secures her position above “the Joneses.” She’s returned to her home, where she has always felt the most safe. Carm was the one with the least philosophical angst all along, so it’s no surprise that the height of her unease pales in comparison to Tony’s paranoia, AJ’s depression, and Meadow’s desire to (in effect) replace her father.

That leave’s Tony, our hero. His angst began in season one, not season 6A as some think. He’s been struggling with

Anyway, good luck fillin’ Rizoh’s shoes keeping TRU running and save us visitors from going cold turkey.