Season 6 (2006–07)¶
At a glance¶
- Episodes
- 21 — split into two parts
- Part 1
- 12 eps, March 12 – June 4, 2006 · 8.60M avg
- Part 2
- 9 eps, April 8 – June 10, 2007 · 8.23M avg
- Finale
- 11.9M viewers
- Metacritic
- 96
- Emmys
- Outstanding Drama Series (2007); Chase, Outstanding Writing
Who am I? Where am I going? Kevin Finnerty
The final season is a two-part argument: give Tony a genuine spiritual experience, then spend nine episodes demonstrating that it changed nothing.
Episodes¶
Part One (2006)¶
| # | Title | Directed by | Written by | Air date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 66 | Members Only | Tim Van Patten | Terence Winter | Mar 12, 2006 |
| 67 | Join the Club | David Nutter | David Chase | Mar 19, 2006 |
| 68 | Mayham | Jack Bender | Matthew Weiner | Mar 26, 2006 |
| 69 | The Fleshy Part of the Thigh | Alan Taylor | Diane Frolov & Andrew Schneider | Apr 2, 2006 |
| 70 | Mr. & Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request… | Steve Buscemi | Terence Winter | Apr 9, 2006 |
| 71 | Live Free or Die | Tim Van Patten | David Chase, Terence Winter, Robin Green & Mitchell Burgess | Apr 16, 2006 |
| 72 | Luxury Lounge | Danny Leiner | Matthew Weiner | Apr 23, 2006 |
| 73 | Johnny Cakes | Tim Van Patten | Diane Frolov & Andrew Schneider | Apr 30, 2006 |
| 74 | The Ride | Alan Taylor | Terence Winter | May 7, 2006 |
| 75 | Moe n' Joe | Steve Shill | Matthew Weiner | May 14, 2006 |
| 76 | Cold Stones | Tim Van Patten | Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider & David Chase | May 21, 2006 |
| 77 | Kaisha | Alan Taylor | Terence Winter, David Chase & Matthew Weiner | Jun 4, 2006 |
Part Two (2007)¶
| # | Title | Directed by | Written by | Air date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 78 | Soprano Home Movies | Tim Van Patten | Diane Frolov, Andrew Schneider, David Chase & Matthew Weiner | Apr 8, 2007 |
| 79 | Stage 5 | Alan Taylor | Terence Winter | Apr 15, 2007 |
| 80 | Remember When | Phil Abraham | Terence Winter | Apr 22, 2007 |
| 81 | Chasing It | Tim Van Patten | Matthew Weiner | Apr 29, 2007 |
| 82 | Walk Like a Man | Terence Winter | Terence Winter | May 6, 2007 |
| 83 | Kennedy and Heidi | Alan Taylor | Matthew Weiner & David Chase | May 13, 2007 |
| 84 | The Second Coming | Tim Van Patten | Terence Winter | May 20, 2007 |
| 85 | The Blue Comet | Alan Taylor | David Chase & Matthew Weiner | Jun 3, 2007 |
| 86 | Made in America | David Chase | David Chase | Jun 10, 2007 |
Part one: the coma¶
Junior, whose dementia has advanced past the point of recognition, shoots Tony in the stomach in "Members Only." Tony spends the next two episodes in a coma.
"Join the Club" and "Mayham" are the show's most radical hours. In them, Tony is a mild-mannered optics salesman at a conference in Costa Mesa who has lost his wallet and been mistaken for a man named Kevin Finnerty. He can't get home. His voice isn't Gandolfini's usual register. A house on a hill is holding a party he's expected at, and a group of monks are furious with Finnerty over a faulty heating system.
Chase refuses to explain it, and it doesn't need explaining: it's a man being offered a life that isn't his, and a destination he isn't ready for. Infinity. Finnerty.
He wakes up grateful. "Every day is a gift," he tells people. It lasts about four episodes.
The other major thread is Vito Spatafore — a top earner outed as gay, who flees to New Hampshire, finds a genuinely happy life with a short-order cook, and comes back anyway because he can't imagine being anyone else. What happens to him is the show's bluntest statement about the culture it depicts.
Part two: the collapse¶
Nine episodes of dismantling.
"Soprano Home Movies" — Tony and Bobby at a lake house; a drunken Monopoly game turns into a real fistfight, and Tony, having lost, sends Bobby to commit his first murder. Contains Bobby's line about how you probably don't hear it when it happens — which Chase cuts back to in "The Blue Comet."
"Kennedy and Heidi" — Christopher, high, crashes his car with Tony in the passenger seat. A baby seat is crushed. Tony leans in and suffocates him. Then he flies to Las Vegas, takes peyote with a woman Christopher knew, wins at roulette, and shouts I get it! at the desert sunrise. What he gets is that he is relieved his nephew is dead.
"The Second Coming" — A.J.'s suicide attempt in the pool, and Tony pulling him out. Gandolfini's rawest scene in the series.
"The Blue Comet" — Bobby is killed in a model train shop; Silvio is left in a coma; Melfi, having read a study suggesting talk therapy helps sociopaths refine their manipulation, ends the therapy after seven years. The crew goes to the mattresses.
"Made in America" — the finale. See The Ending.
Reception¶
Metacritic 96. The season won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 2007, and Chase won Outstanding Writing for the finale.
The finale's reception was violently mixed on the night and has settled into near-consensus admiration. That story is on its own page: The Ending for the facts, Reading the Ending for the arguments.
What the season is arguing¶
Part one gives Tony the closest thing to grace the show allows: a near-death experience, an alternate self, and a genuine conviction that he's been given another chance.
Part two is the answer. He murders his nephew and feels relief. He gambles compulsively. He loses his therapist — who leaves not because he's incurable but because she concludes she has been helping him get better at being what he is. And by the last episode, everyone who kept him human is dead, comatose, estranged, or has walked away.
The cut to black arrives after six seasons of a man being offered chances to change and declining every one. Whether that's a tragedy or a diagnosis is the thing people are still arguing about.