[Editor’s Note: This article contains spoilers for The Many Saints of Newark.]
At first glance, the ending ofThe Many Saints of Newarkmay seem confusing. As the film heads towards its denouement, it looks like Silvio (John Magaro) has convinced Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola) to finally take young Tony Soprano (Michael Gandolfini) under his wing. But then Dickie is assassinated in his own driveway, and while the culprit at first seems like his former partner turned rival Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr.), the man responsible is actually Junior Soprano (Corey Stoll), who was still smarting from an incident a few months prior where he slipped on some steps, hurt his back, and Dickie laughed at him. For all of Dickie’s sins—murdering his father (Ray Liotta) and later his step-mother/lover Giuseppina (Michela De Rossi)—it was some petty, forgotten insult that led to his death.
In the final scene, we see young Tony at Dickie’s funeral and we get an image of Dickie’s hand coming out of the coffin and reaffirming the pinkie promise he made with young Tony as our narrator Christopher (Michael Imperioli), Dickie’s deceased son who was murdered by Tony years later, tells us that’s the guy—Tony—he ended up going to hell for. For the audience, it’s a creation moment where Tony Soprano becomes the gangster we know fromThe Sopranos.
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But wait—wouldn’t Dickie’s death be a means of escape for Tony? After all, Dickie was going to take Tony under his wing, so wouldn’t Tony be damned either way? But that’s the point of the movie—that these are men, and especially Tony and Christopher, who built their lives on lies about the past and delusions of greatness. If Dickie had lived, Tony may have had the chance to see his mentor as a man with all his faults. It’s possible that Dickie may have even killed Tony one day (after all, Dickie’s clearly not above killing the people he loves). At the very least, Tony would be left with the reality of the man and living with that truth.
Instead, Tony is left with something far more dangerous—a myth. With Dickie dead in his coffin, he achieves a “saint”-like status for young Tony. He becomes a figure to emulate rather than a deeply flawed individual, and that connection is what forms Tony into a similar figure—selfish, mercurial, self-pitying, and destructive. Tony tells us at the beginning ofThe Sopranosthat he feels like he already missed the best part, and that he came in “at the end of things.” This is the past he’s mythologizing, and inThe Sopranosyou can see how Christopher shares that mythologizing of what this gangster life is supposed to be.
In death, Christopher realizes it was all bullshit. “The guy I went to hell for,” is a tragic final line because Christopher built his life on lies admiring a guy who also built his life on lies, and those lies came from Christopher’s own delusional father. These men and their failure to see themselves and their country for what it is led to their downfall, which makesThe Many Saints of Newarka powerful blend of Greek tragedy and American fable.
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