The Rundown: Does It Really Matter If Tony Soprano Died?

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items will vary, as will the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest. The important thing is that it’s Friday and we are here to have some fun.

ITEM NUMBER ONE — Does it really matter if Tony died at the end of The Sopranos?

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the premiere of The Sopranos, meaning it is once again Time To Talk About The Sopranos. You may have noticed this. There are articles and listicles and thinkpieces about the show everywhere. There is also a book, written by Matt Zoller Seitz and our former colleague Alan Sepinwall, which features a long, in-depth interview with the show’s creator, David Chase. In that interview (which is very good), as is usually the case when it is Time To Talk About The Sopranos, the subject of the final scene comes up, and what exactly it means or does not mean. Did Tony die when it cut to black? Did he live? Why didn’t anyone teach Meadow how to parallel park? And so on.

You will not be surprised to learn that people have strong opinions about this. A lot of them. But I was thinking about it all again this week and I came to a new conclusion about it all: I don’t think it matters if Tony died in that scene. I don’t think it matters at all. The whole point of it was to build the tension and show that his card could get pulled at any time, anywhere, even as he’s eating onion rings with his family. That’s his life now. Any creep in a Members Only jacket could be the trigger man, not necessarily the one we see here. It’s a fun argument to make because it infuriates the people who are sure he died and have, like, PowerPoints and a full-on yarn wall to back it up. I recommend trying it. The phrase “it doesn’t matter” is the key. Watch their eyes go black with rage when you say it.

It also made me think about something else: How great would it be if David Chase put out a special collectors’ edition of the show for the anniversary and just changed the ending without telling anyone? Like you’re watching and waiting for the cut to black, but instead of that happening the Members Only guy walks up to the table like:

“Hey, are you Tony Soprano?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Me. I’m Rick. I think your daughter just bumped my car out there.”

Or, even better, one where it still cuts to black, but then the screen goes white and we see Tony in a long line at what we soon learn is the Pearly Gates. Tony standing there, 200 people from the front, nervously sweating out his judgment but also getting cranky about the long wait, leaning out and shouting things like “Ay, whasss the fuckin’ hold-up here?!”

God, that would be so great. People would be furious. I don’t think I’d ever stop laughing.

ITEM NUMBER TWO — Lurking Malkovich!

The Young Pope was a wild show. There were surprise kangaroos and nuns playing basketball and lines of dialogue like “I was praying so hard I almost shit my pants.” There were also truly stunning visuals and a surprisingly deep look at the effects of abandonment and isolation and power. It was silly and beautiful and powerful and somehow both way more than you think it was and exactly what you think it was. I loved it dearly for about 10 different reasons and I will happily explain all of them to you if you come over with a large coffee and a breakfast sandwich some Saturday morning.

But right now, there’s no time, and the reason there’s no time is that we have a LURKING MALKOVICH.

Yup, HBO released the first image from the follow-up to The Young Pope, titled The New Pope (and again helmed by Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino), and right there, in the back of the shot, behind Jude Law, is John Malkovich. We knew Malkovich was going to be a part of this second Pope go-round because the casting was announced a few months ago and I lost my mind then, too, but it’s another thing to actually see it. Look at him. He looks so menacing. I don’t even know if he’s going for that. Maybe that’s just my default setting for Malkovich, based on his career of playing toughs and bad guys that most recently included an arc on my beloved Billions as a violent Russian an oligarch who had the same accent as Teddy KGB from Rounders. I think a screencap will help.

And now he’s coming to The Young Pope. Er, The New Pope. I don’t know if I like this title change, to be honest. And I don’t know what to expect with Jude Law’s reportedly smaller role. I’m still getting over the death of the Pope’s kangaroo. All this change is unsettling. I think the only thing that will help is John Malkovich’s character, the new Pope on The New Pope, saying a line of dialogue like “There’s a new Pope in town.” Can’t rule it out. I mean…

I’m serious about that coffee and breakfast sandwich, by the way. Just a little cream for me.

ITEM NUMBER THREE — About this whole “Bryan Cranston in a wheelchair” business

Folks, there is controversy a-bubblin’ related to a new movie in which Bryan Cranston plays a character in a wheelchair. I, a pop culture writer who covers television and movies and is also in a wheelchair, feel somewhat obligated to weigh in. So here’s me doing that.

The short version: Bryan Cranston is starring in a new movie with Kevin Hart. The movie, The Upside, features Cranston as a quadriplegic billionaire and Hart as his assistant/aide. This week, disability advocates took Cranston to task for playing a character in a wheelchair instead of stepping aside so an actor who actually does have a disability could play the role. Cranston stood his ground, essentially saying “I’m an actor. My job is to pretend to be people I’m not.” Which… okay.

There are two sides here, as there are in most things. One on hand, you’ve got Cranston’s point, that actors play a wide range of roles that do not always match up with their own set of life experiences. Bryan Cranston has not, to my knowledge, ever been a New Mexico meth kingpin in real life, and yet, he portrayed one to great and justified critical acclaim on Breaking Bad. This is the point of acting. To act. Fine, great, wonderful. And there’s also the thing where a movie like this probably doesn’t even get made without a big name like Bryan Cranston attached in the lead role. There are no disabled actors whose star shines quite as bright. I get all of that.

On the other hand, you have the fact that there aren’t many real, meaty roles for disabled actors, who can really only play disabled characters, and it’s kind of a bummer to see those roles always go to able-bodied people. I’m sure there are a ton of disabled actors who would kill for this kind of opportunity, to star in a major motion picture that gets a wide release and commercials that air during major sporting events.

So, what do we do about it? I think the simplest answer is one I’ve actually suggested before: We need more roles in more projects for what I’ll call regular disabled characters. Not billionaires or geniuses or genius billionaires, like this character or Professor X. Not movie-of-the-week fluff about a plucky little boy with a can-do attitude who helps his small town save Christmas. Just, like, regular people who happen to be disabled.

Start with supporting roles. A friend in a buddy comedy who has a normal job. A person in the life of one of the zillion superheroes in the trillion comic book movies. Let people get their foot — or wheel, if you will — in the door so they have name recognition and experience when a role like this comes along again. That way producers have options right in front of their face. It’s hard enough to compete for roles against a guy with 400 Emmys. Let’s make it a little easier, at least.

ITEM NUMBER FOUR — Will this ever stop being funny to me?

You’d think the answer is yes, right? That eventually I’d get tired of Brooklyn Nine-Nine putting Andre Braugher in silly situations and having him say silly things. That one day I’d look up after hearing him say phrases like “hula hoop” or “clearly the pineapple is the slut” — as he did in this week’s season premiere, which featured his character in a number of novelty vacation t-shirts including, yes, the one above, the one depicting a pineapple in a thong above the word “SLUT” — and say something along the lines of “This is really just the same joke over and over again, right? Having Andre Braugher lend years of earned gravitas to the show so it can make him look foolish? Shouldn’t we be beyond that at some point?”

Well, folks, I am pleased to report that this is not the case. At all. I love it every time, still, up to and including this episode, the show’s first after getting axed at Fox and picked up by NBC. It’s the delivery, I think. And the presence. And that voice, my god. Lance Reddick does a similar thing on Corporate, lending his authoritative and commanding presence to the show so they can use it for goofs. It will never get old to me. I don’t have to explain myself to any of you.

ITEM NUMBER FIVE — Dr. Ruth: Icon

This is a trailer for an upcoming documentary on Hulu titled Ask Dr. Ruth. I’m glad someone is making a movie about Dr. Ruth because Dr. Ruth rules so hard and I don’t know if everyone realizes it. It’s easy to miss if you’re not looking. I imagine you look at Dr. Ruth and see a tiny old woman who talks about sex in her thick German accent and you think it’s all fun and games.

But know this: Dr. Ruth is a damn pioneer. Few people have done more to open up the conversation about sex and sexuality in such a healthy way. She’s been on television for decades encouraging people to talk about things that make them blush and, in doing so, elevating the entire discourse about the subject. Also, she was a sniper in the Israeli army when she was younger. This last thing has very little to do with the other things we’ve mentioned but it is very cool and very true and I consider it my duty to bring it up every time her name is mentioned. Look, here she is tweeting about it.

She also tweeted this, which also has very little to do with anything we’ve discussed so far, but which I consider to be maybe the funniest tweet I’ve ever read.

Dr. Ruth is a badass and a legend and you need to recognize that before you see a tiny red dot on your chest and it’s too late.

AND NOW, THE NEWS

We have Florida toilet problems. Actually, no. That’s not quite accurate. We have Florida sewer problems. But, as with most sewer issues, it starts with the toilet, and I really wanted to type “Florida toilet problems,” so here we are.

These particular toilet/sewer problems stem from those “flushable wipes” that you see in stores, the kind some people are using to replace toilet paper. See, what they don’t tell you is that, while these are indeed “flushable,” they are not biodegradable, and so they end up floating through sewage pipes and finding each other and clumping up into massive globs that cause problems like this. From The Bradenton Herald:

A large clump of wipes is being blamed for causing a break to an 18-inch sewer line in Ballard Park on Tuesday, sending 80,000 gallons of waste water into the stormwater system and ultimately into Ware’s Creek.

And while that’s both not ideal and a good lesson for all of us to learn, it is not why I have included this story in this column. I have included it because this is the opening of the article about it.

Bradenton has a cheeky problem to deal with and the city wants to get to the bottom of it, ensuring it’s an issue wiped away while providing relief to its sewer system.

Ironically, a product designed to get yourself clean is creating the mess: baby wipes.

I’m so proud of everyone involved. Except for the people flushing the wipes. They should probably stop doing that.