Letters to the Editor
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Finally I will quit wasting my time...
...on a soap opera filled with loose, untied ends, nonsensical plot developments, and disappointing conclusions. Please, spare me any further articles about what a "genius" David Chase is and how "brilliant" his "dream project" is that he spent all those years slumming in TV and finally got to do. Sorry, David, it was basically it was just a lame made-for TV ripoff of "Goodfellas" and you clearly didn't have enough ideas to sustain it. When the best you can do is try to figure out creative, disgusting ways to kill off characters, you are about as innovative as a "Friday the 13th" sequel.
As the great Johnny Rotten once said, "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" " To paraphrase the Dixie Chicks, "FUDC".
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You all should have seen it coming!
The "kiss of death" so to speak, for serial-style prime-time dramas is the serious, grand-finale type ending. This has been a TV truism ever since the "Fugitive" fiasco.
That classic 60's drama series had a definite ending - which meant that its value in reruns (which is where the Really Big Money is made in TV land) was tarnished. Why should viewers put themselves through a story whose ending is already known, and unambiguous to boot?
And so, we now have extended-plotline dramas (even comedies!) with ambiguous endings, who-cares endings, weird endings, or campy in-joke endings. See, folks, it's only a show...don't take it too seriously and enjoy the repeats!
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I don't even watch the show...
And still I came here to read Heather's take on the finale after seeing a clip of it on the news this morning. She's *that* good.
You guys ought to read up on what happened after the final (puzzling, WTF?!) episode of "The Prisoner." Enraged, confused fans blew up the network's switchboard and hounded Patrick McGoohan at his home to have it explained to them. That was 40 years ago and people are dissecting it to this day.
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Missing the overall
People are making so much of the ending, story and character twists and turns they are missing the overall parable about our current culture: the constant sense of impending doom in the final season, reflecting that of our own country. That sense, like our own, is not always justified as Chase's devices lead to nothing (just like our many terror alerts) and when it is, is often a fear brought on by Tony's own actions in the world (blowback for the U.S.) In the end, the series died as it lived: dissatisfying yet intriging and thought-provoking. Narravtive-wise the show ended the way every season ended: the next-to-last episode was the one filled with action (the death by violence of major characters seemingly setting the stage for a grand finale which didn't happen, just many questions left unanswered and storylines petering out.) While Chase is a great writer, I think maybe he's given too much credit sometimes for having an overall narrative vision (as opposed to his thematic one of commenting on American life) which perhaps isn't there. I thought the show sometimes could have used a senior story editor - others say issues like the failure to tie up loose ends is part of Chase's brilliance, but at the start of each new season (especially after the disappearing Russian) brought such an outcry they would make a half-hearted attempt to give closure to plot lines that lasted an entire season, making it seem like an afterthought. The show has always been as much, if not more, of a comment on current American values (consumerism, medicated reality, overwhelming denial in pursuit of the American dream) as it was about the modern Mafia. Every episode wasn't brilliant (for that, see Deadwood), but it will go down as a unique and often insightful commentary on American life for this past decade. Kudos for Chase and crew for that.
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Relating to TV Characters like they are real (johnny...)
I really don't see what's wrong with this. When our ancestors were sitting around the fire telling myths about a giant turtle, or the poor servant girl who gets to marry the prince , or the the clever fox getting the best of the tough old lion, don't you think that some of them discussed what it meant? That the dreamers of the bunch imagined it was them being saved, or the realists cried it was a fake piece of crap. Don't you think they sat there and argued passionately, and saw pieces of themselves in what was basically fictional stories?
Sure, now we do it about television, but quite a few of us get that wrapped up in books, or art or music. There's nothing wrong with it. In fact, our imagination is whats allowed us to create great (and terrible) civilizations. Sure, it's just a television show, but these are our modern day myths. Those of you without an imagination, please exit the conversation; I respect your pragmatism, please respect my escapist fantasies.
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Ambiguity
There are enough clues/hints/suggestions to suggest strongly that Chase either whacks Tony or wants us to find it a plausible ending. So far I haven't seen anything that would point the other way and rule it out. Thus it is fair to assume that's what happened, as I do. If Chase intended all the foreshadowing and hints as red herrings, then he's entrapped himself in them and I don't consider it my job, or anyone else's, to free him. He will have to live with this interpretation. Even if he explicitly denies it, and says that all the foreshadowing and clues are merely lies within the broader lie of fiction, that the counter customer (is he really identified as "Nick Leotardo" in the credits?) simply goes to the bathroom and is never heard from again, etc., I feel justified in saying that he made his bed and Tony now must sleep (like the fishes) in it.
I like this interpretation. Initially I was really annoyed by the ending. It didn't help that I wasn't paying enough attention and thus didn't realize that the blackout occurred as the camera was on Tony looking up, presumably at Meadow. Somehow I thought the last image was of Meadow running into the restaurant, which certainly wouldn't have suggested nearly as well that the blackout had to do with something happening to Tony. I pieced it together as I watched a second showing.
That Tony and Bobby's exchange about how "you'll never know it when it comes" was repeated in the previous episode is the strongest suggestion that Tony is killed. The clear focus on the two white customers (I have less faith in the black guys walking in) and Meadow's trouble parallel parking could certainly be red herrings, but as Chase gives himself no chance to pull the string and reveal them as such (which he could have done, quite fairly, for humor if the series didn't end), it seems to me they may be given credence. Miscellanea: I couldn't help thinking of Michael Corleone in Godfather I when the counter customer walks very mindfully to the bathroom, though it certainly seems unlikely there'd be a gun behind the toilet. Are the labels on the jukebox colored orange? I think maybe they were, though my color perception isn't especially good. Having read about the significance of oranges, I couldn't help but notice broad expanses of orange boxes in the toy train store where Bobby is killed.
The cat was funny. I like an interpretation I've seen that it's a reincarnation of Adriana. It seems a stretch, all right, but it flatters me that she might reappear in some form in the finale. My first vision (from months ago) of the end of the series included an investigation that uncovered enough of the details of her murder to thoroughly sicken Carmela and wipe out the denial that the whole Soprano family lives with. That didn't happen, but the real ending, as I see it, is good, even better in a certain conceptual sense.
I rather liked that AJ was lured away from his social consciousness, which was always pretty incoherent to begin with, by the promise of working on a cheap movie. "It's all a big nothing" does hold true in relation to the moral development of just about every character. They keep being true to themselves, which is the worst way they could be. I'm not ready to accept that the ending is a "big nothing" in the sense of nothing happening beyond the eating of onion rings. I think the blackout is the "big nothing" of death.