Letters to the Editor
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Detente with Butchie/NY
The sit-down with Butchie occurred in the wake of Phil not only rejecting Butchie's advice, but threatening him. Phil also questioned Butchie's guts while touring Long Island in his SUV, clearly feeling insulated from the mayhem he had created. A hypocritical, no-class, chicken-hawk maneuver.
Not going to make a point about the obvious geopolitical implications, just throwing this out for folks who don't understand why or how the NY-NJ peace conference took place.
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Why Sopranos at all?
Regardless of the "clever" ending with which David Chase ended this series, I'd like to look beyond simply the moment and ask a deeper question: why is "The Sopranos" so popular? Is this the sort of life-style we value? Are these the people we admire? "Oh, it's just entertainment." Well, why is it "entertaining" to watch criminals hurt people and often in very brutal ways? Do we admire on some level the Tony Sopranos of this world or get subliminal pleasure from seeing other people hurt (if only in fantasy)?
Consider the current lineup of video games children play ("Grand Theft Auto" is one that comes to mind) and even "America's Funniest Home Video's" tends to show a lot of people and/or animals in painful and destructive situations, while the American public sits home and laughs at these mishaps and corporations rake in millions through product indoctrination, a.k.a. commercials. Where is the empathy for the hurt, the compasion, not to mention the revulsion at the whole concept of "enterainment" based on the suffering and destruction of others.
We haven't come far from the days of the Roman coliseum, where men fighting men and/or animals to the death was popular "entertainment."
The absurd and callous political climate we suffer from today is not all that far removed from the mentality behing the popularity of such programs at this. Why, even, is Salon.com putting an item about this lurid TV show in prime position on its web site? I thought it had higher standards, but perhaps I'm mistaken.
Before you write me off as some prudish nutcase up in Maine, just take time to consider what I'm saying. So much of the what many of us see today as "troubling" politically is due in great measure to our society's lack of questioning "the way things are." Until we stop and begin to think "outside the box," and question assumptions and well as the status quo and the politicians and corporatons that run this country, we'll continue to decline as a nation.
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The Only Way To End It.
I said before, Monday morning the interenet would be filled with people decrying how Chase screwed up the ending, no matter how he ended it.
I think however this was the best possible ending.
Tony in joyous domesticity would have seen cliched and wrong, and Tony in a heap would have been equally incorrect.
Tony just goes on, but turns off the camera, that's what happened.
The story goes on, but our access ends. It's sort of like the Brady Bunch, someday maybe we'll be watching the Sopranos Brides or a Christmas special 15 years out, but for now the story ends.
But as one story ends another begins...Did anyone else find John from Cincinnatti a rather weak follow up to either the Sopranos or Deadwood?
I mean is that ment as a joke? Corporate Surfing? Do people actually Surf anymore? Talk about your over estimation of your own importance in the world. Mitch Yost should get back in the game? Who the hell is Mitch Yost, and why should I care?
Still it's great to see Ed O'Neil working. Had they put Dragnet on HBO, that would have been sweet. Thank goodness we still have the Wire.
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Who Cares About the Freakin Sopranos
Jeezus! First the New York Times--now YOU GUYS--leading with the freakin Sopranos! Ugh! This is not lede-worthy stuff--it's crap and it's irritating.
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I liked what I Saw!
I think it was a perfect ending and don't understand how so many fans are calling it a cop out. I was dreading watching it "live" and Tivo'd the finale. Then later I watched the previous epidsode before watching the finale. I didn't want an ending I might not like. That said, I was eleated with what David Chase gave me!
We got Tony visiting Junior and Tony and Junior getting one last jab at Janice, by not allowing her to profit from Bobby's death, give the money to his kids. This was sweet and unexpected.
I LOVED Paulie and the cat! Sorry folks, I know this was the final episode, but I wanted to smile and enjoy what was left of the original crew, and Paulie, with all his phobias, made me laugh. A cat that stares at Christopher's photo. Maybe this is Chase teasing all the "Ade is coming back" fans.
I've never liked AJ and could have lived without his "problems" taking up a good 15 minutes of the show, but, he is family.
I felt like Tony's ducks did come back to roost, but his ducks are his family and they were all coming to him at the diner, all arriving seperatly.
Does Tony get whacked in those last minutes of the epidsode? Probably, but I like knowing that I can tell myself he didn't and smile.
Bravo to David Chase. Am anxious to see the other 2 alternate endings when the dvd comes out.
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"Like a Coltrane solo"
Yeah, and alot of people pretend to lake that, too.
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Expectations
Some scenes move the story forward; some scenes project the character's emotions onto the audience. The latter is the hardest to make. We now know how Tony lived every day - always in fear of what any other guy might do - but nothing happens and organized crime goes on. They dare the worst and wait. They sit at a table in the street, hang out in toy stores, take the family to storefront restaurants - and wait for the guy with the gun.
The analyst was right: she only made Tony a more confident sociopath, willing to take his entire family with him to certain death just to prove he could. We really did deserve that ending. We became the sociopaths. We are the ones who think there's a difference between the mafia and the foreign terrorists they fear. We are the ones upset there was no bloodshed at the end. If we want to argue the storyline, we missed the point. We are the story.