Letters to the Editor
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Back to the Supernatural --- The Mob visits the Twighlight Zone
Heather Havrilesky asks, "Is Chase brilliant for so thoroughly subverting our expectations, or ... is he just an asshole?"
I'd like to think that Chase didn't give up like Lynch did with "Twin Peaks" but put in effort and thought behind this episode for himself and not just to be contrary to audience expectations or give us a blank slate to write our own ending.
So, ignoring the Chase commentary about Bush and the War on Terror (FBI acting immoral, etc) and other tidbits (Chase waves goodbye to the audience: " A.J.: Isn't that what you said one time? Try to remember the times that were good?), here is my take on the final episode:Tony is the star of this morality play and it is dying. Like a real star, his universe begins to collapse. His extended family members are killed or dead (June is effectively dead), his captains are comotose or informants, NY is wounded with Phil's death.
[Note the double Decker tour bus passing announcing, "Little Italy used to be 40 square blocks and now it just one row of shops," and Phil's henchman talking to Phil in Little Italy and then when he hangs up, he's run out of room and sees a wall of Chinese faces--because Chinatown has overrun Little Italy.]
So, at the end, they go to a place we've never seen or heard of before. As Tony sits alone, Carmela, Meadow, and AJ are all satellites unable to escape the gravity of Tony and one by one they fall back into him after almost escaping. Carmela, still as contemptuous of Tony and his life when they split, (see her face as Tony usurps his son's therapist for himself) loses her moral battle and gives into the wealth (Meadows success is measured in money not sacrifice) and (false sense of) comfort Tony provides. And there she sits down.
AJ for all his attempts, active and passive, to not be like Tony, rejects the Army and "Arabic" culture (his view of a noble goal), and becomes his father: in therapy, coming downstairs in his robe, and bought off with new BMW and blond girlfriend, soon, to run a nightclub bought with mob money. And there he sits down.
And Meadow, the least like all of them, trying to fit in (parallel parking --- which is an homage to a classic movie scene which was itself copied in the Untouchables designed to create tension), decides not to help babies, not to help the poor but to make lots of money defending criminals. She is her mother, deluding in thinking that Mobsters are just Italian-Americans being unfairly hounded by the government. And, just before we cut to black, she's being sucked in.
The last satellite.And what black hole is she being sucked into? When I saw the last scene, it looked familiar to me. The American banality of it all (complete with a horrible Journey song ... I can't believe Chase wants us to be reading into these crappy lyrics. Although, it's not coincidence that he ended to series on the line, "Don't Stop.") gives a sense of safety but one by one, in comes someone who you think will be the one to shoot Tony and kill him. The trucker, a disgruntled victim of Mob abuse? The man who comes in with AJ, a paid him man? The two black youths, ready to rob the place and "accidentally" kill Tony? The safety of Tony is an illusion because everywhere, no matter how "safe" it looks, he faces danger. What did the cafe, where we've never been in before, remind me of? A cafe from any number of "Twilight Zone" episodes, which theme song happened to be used in last night's episode.
Tony's universe collapsed like a dying star and sucked his family into his hell; a dingy dinner with danger in every form.
Like Heather said in her column today, "Goodbye, Tony. Looks like you won't go to prison (not yet, anyway), and you won't rat, and you won't finally get your comeuppance, dying in a bloody heap. You'll be immortalized eating onion rings, chuckling, focusing on the good times."
"Just like the rest of us. Going to hell in a red leather booth, with Journey playing in the background. "
But of course, I could be wrong. So, when does Big Love start up again?