On this day 19 years ago, one of the greatest runs in television history came to an end.
On June 10, 2007, Tony Soprano walked into Holsten’s diner
That’s right, folks, today marks nearly two decades since , with “Made In America” giving us the exact type of cliffhanger that David Chase loved to tease his audiences with.
Whether you believe Tony was shot, died of a heart attack, or the cut to black was really just the end of the show, with the living out the rest of his days a paranoid shell of his former, season one self, the rampant theorizing is part of what made the show a massive hit.
In that vein, here are five more fan theories from “The Sopranos” that make the show even more engaging on subsequent rewatches.
As Tony’s crew and friend circle starts to shrink as the show goes on, our panic attack-prone paisan becomes increasingly paranoid and scrambles to find a successor.
Unfortunately, the best he can do is his drug addict “nephew,” Christopher Moltisanti.
Tony does his best to groom Chrissy as his “hair apparent,” but despite his best efforts, Moltisanti remains an unreliable junkie until season six, when he makes an earnest attempt to get clean.
Towards the end of the season, Chris relapses and starts using again, leading to a car crash that leaves him maimed, giving Tony no other option but to whack his underling.
But in the scene before the car crash, we see Tony and Chris at a meeting with Phil where the two are discussing business, and it’s here where we are given clues that Chris may be a rat.
During the meeting, Chris is seen wearing a cap promoting his new movie, “Cleaver.”
Other than the fact that Chris is only seen wearing a cap one other time in the show (during the pilot), the choice of headwear may be a callback to season five, when Soprano associate Jack Masserone was seen wearing a wire in his ball cap right before he was taken out by a few of Tony’s flunkies.
Chris would have had plenty of incentive to flip, as his relationship with his uncle had all but disintegrated by this point in the show, and between his drug use and myriad crimes, there is a good chance he slipped up at some point.
If that’s the case, Tony got extremely lucky suffocating him before he was able to say anything too incriminating on tape.
One of the more annoying side characters in the show, Noah Tannenbaum is Meadow’s obnoxious boyfriend she meets in college during the first half of season three.
Throughout their relationship, Noah’s cocksure attitude rubs plenty of viewers and characters the wrong way, including his proclamation that he intends to “punch (Tony’s) f—ing lights out,” but Meadow is head over heels for him regardless.
Everything is fine and dandy until Meadow spends the weekend at home, leaving Noah to deal with her manic-depressive roommate, Caitlin.
After Meadow makes it back to Columbia, her normally straight-A student boyfriend starts making a stink about getting a C on a paper, and grows distant with Meadow, eventually breaking up with her in the library of all places.
He blames the poor grade on Caitlin, saying her incessant yapping caused him to lose focus, even revealing his overbearing father had a restraining order filed against her.
All of this feels like a convenient excuse to make a clean break with Meadow without having to reveal the fact that he cheated on her with her roommate.
The show does a pretty good job of not-so-subtly hinting at it, too.
In the scene where Caitlin walks into Noah’s room after learning Meadow is out of town, she asks if she can stay so she isn’t lonely, to which Noah begrudgingly obliges.
Since the show is often more about what you don’t see, there’s a heavy implication that the two slept together, especially since the next time she sees Meadow, she’s in an unusually chipper mood.
Maybe this is just a way for fans of the show to hate on
