Now that David Chase’s long-awaited Sopranos prequel, The Many Saints of Newark, has arrived in theaters and on HBO Max, it’s provided another protagonistic death to test Bobby’s theory. As Chase promised, The Many Saints of Newark is Dickie Moltisanti’s (Alessandro Nivola) story and that story ends with his death.
It’s unclear whether Dickie heard the bullet from a silenced gun that killed him but we, the audience, sure do. And though that gunshot ends his story, it’s just the beginning of so many others. Let’s explore how with an explanation of The Many Saints of Newark’s ending.
Who Killed Dickie Moltisanti?
There is no shortage of reasons why someone would want to kill Christopher Moltisanti’s (Michael Imperioli) father Dickie. This is a man who killed his own father, took his father’s wife as his comare, and then went ahead and killed her too for good measure. Not only that, but by the time The Many Saints of Newark’s ending rolls around in the early ‘70s, the DiMeo crew is on the verge of a full-fledged war with the Black gangsters of Newark, led by Harold McBrayer (Leslie Odom Jr.).
Naturally, the viewer immediately assumes it’s Harold’s guys who take Dickie out as he opens up the trunk of his car. Just a few scenes later, however, the real identity of the man who ordered the hit on Dickie is revealed. Dickie’s killer is none other than Corrado Soprano Jr. (Corey Stoll) a.k.a. Uncle Junior. Junior’s reasons for killing Dickie are extremely petty, which is fitting for a story that’s always been about gangsters’ unpredictable inner turmoil.
For starters, Junior doesn’t like how his brother Johnny Boy (Jon Bernthal) nor his nephew Anthony (Michael Gandolfini) deifies Dickie. Then there’s the time that Junior injured himself slipping on some wet stairs and Dickie laughed at him rather than helping. Truth be told, that one incident is probably around 90% of the reason that Junior went after Dickie. Thanks to the events of The Sopranos, we know that Junior isn’t hesitant to order a hit on a family member (as he does with Tony in season 1), and that he’s also very sensitive when it comes to his sexuality. Not being able to adequately perform his manly bedroom duties thanks to his injury must have stung him as much it being revealed he performs cunnilingus on his comare did.
What’s particularly interesting is that this reveal now severely recontextualizes a previous event from The Sopranos. In the season 4 premiere “For All Debts Public and Private”, Tony tells Christopher that they’ve identified the man who killed his father. The man’s name was Barry Haydu and he supposedly did the hit at the behest of Jilly Ruffalo. When Christopher goes to kill Barry, he is adamant that he had nothing to do with Dickie’s death and in fact has never even heard the names Dickie Moltisanti or Jilly Ruffalo.
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