  So, was Tony whacked as he sat down to dinner with his family and The Sopranos finale went black? Talk amongst yourselves.
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"You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?"
That line of dialogue has taken on great meaning as fans of The Sopranos spent yesterday coming to grips with what occurred, and what didn't occur, during the series finale Sunday night.
Think back to the final few moments of the second-last episode, just before Tony (James Gandolfini) lies down with a gun in his "safe house."
There was a brief flashback to the first episode of Season 6B, as Tony and his brother-in-law Bobby (Steve Schirripa) were conversing in a boat on a calm, serene lake.
The talk turns to the biggest and most obvious drawback of working in organized crime -- namely, the danger of getting whacked.
Bobby says, "You probably don't even hear it when it happens, right?"
Tony replies, "Ask your friend in there on the wall," referring to an unfortunate deer who has been stuffed and mounted.
Which brings us to the final moments on Sunday.
Tony, Carmela and A.J. have gathered in a diner and they are surrounded by several suspicious-looking characters. Just as Meadow comes rushing in to join her family, Tony looks up ... and then the screen suddenly goes black.
Could the ending have been a direct reference to Bobby's words?
After all, series creator David Chase went out of his way to have that line inserted as a flashback in the penultimate episode.
So the theory goes like this: Tony is, in fact, dead.
The series ended at the exact, precise moment of his death.
Through his eyes, the world went black. And he never heard it when it happened.
As one observer put it yesterday, "Had David Chase produced the classic Beatles song A Day In The Life, there still would have been the dramatic, rising, whirlwind finish, but no majestic E chord at the end."
The beauty of this is The Sopranos now can play both sides of the street.
If people want to conclude Tony is dead, fine. It's a pretty cool and artistic way to end it.
But three or five or 10 years from now, if somebody gives Chase and Gandolfini matching dump-trucks full of money, Tony can come back. The explanation would be no more complicated than, "Oh, by the way, he didn't die."
Perhaps an even bigger question with regard to Tony's fate was not whether he was going to get killed, but if he did get killed, who was going to do it? After everything that had happened, who was going to be the executioner, and why?
Even if you accept that Tony is dead, the "who" and the "why" were not answered. If Gandolfini never wants to play Tony again, a subsequent series could use the subject of "who killed Tony Soprano?" as a jumping-off point, and you could have basically a whole new cast of characters -- with maybe a few key holdovers -- dealing with the aftermath.
No matter whether you went to bed satisfied or pissed off on Sunday, everyone can agree on this: The final episode of The Sopranos provided us with one of those rare TV moments that the world never will forget. Where were you when the screen went black? What were you thinking? What was your reaction?
The blackness lasted for an excruciating 10 seconds, before the credits started to roll.
Those 10 seconds of dark silence were worth thousands and thousands and thousands of words.
