Letters to the Editor
-
1 more thing
David Chase has said that he knew how the Sopranos would end even before the first episode aired (or shortly thereafter). I don't believe it.
Now, having ended and looking back on the whole Series, I can say that it was brilliantly crafted crap.
Unlike quality shows, like Six Feet Under, which was driven by personality and evolved over time and told a real story with events with their array of predictable and unpredictable repercussions, on the Sopranos no one changed and key plot elements went nowhere.
If Seinfeld was a show about nothing, then the Sopranos had to be about less than nothing, because Seinfeld, ultimately, lifted its material well above meaninglessness and give its loyal following a farewell of sorts. Ultimately the Sopranos was essentially unchanged from its first season. It made its point, then kept making and then made it again and again. It went no where. So when we finally wanted SOMETHING, it continued giving the same thing over and over.
In contrast, The Sopranos hit absolute rock bottom last night. I wonder if the Sopranos following would have been so loyal to the show if they knew how vacuous the ending would be.
Outside of the tension of the final scene, last night's show was actually somewhat dull. It was meandering, episodic, and, consistently, indicated that nothing would ever get resolved. We all, nervously, looked at the passing minutes on the clock and as each minute passed, the knowledge of Nothing ever changing became increasingly clear.
Nothing mattered and we, the viewers, now know it. The task of engaging us, in stimulating us, utterly failed David Chase. Now we have to make desperate sense of our loyalty to this over-rated, hyper violent, show, that was empty at its core.
Yeah, America is a violent, consumption crazy, spiritually empty, paranoid society. Wow.
Sopranos hit THIS nail on the head. It was all of that.