Letters to the Editor
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For Whom the Deli Bell Tolls
Forgive me if this repeats earlier letter writers. I've scanned most, but haven't read as carefully as I could.
Just now re-watched the very, very last few seconds of the final scene and have another clue pointing toward someone's getting whacked: Tony, the show, us, the audience. Tony glances up; Steve Perry sings "Stop;" A bell rings in a tone too bright to be consider a tolling.
John Donne, anybody?
This season's emphasis on the definition of what makes for a sociopath, only underscores the logic of this brilliant cruel un-ending. Do you think Tony gives a **** if we're happy? I still am leaning toward the notion it was the audience that got the bullet in the head, which is why we all immediately thought our televisions had failed.
Do onions ring?
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No, David Chase took a dump
on the heads of the shallow people who only want to see blood and death.
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We were whacked
Someone else posted this and I think it really fits. While I was watching that final scene it felt like I was sitting right there in the restaurant with him, noticing all the people coming and going and feeling more and more uneasy as it went on. Then ..... nothing. Any way you interpret the ending though, it was great!
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Tony's America
fightthetheocracy writes: "This man was a criminal and deserved to die like the worthless piece of trash that he was. All the characters should have been killed off. Including his wife and kids, they knew he was a criminal and stayed with him anyway. They all deserve nothing but the death penalty. His wife and daughter deserved to get raped and he should have been forced to watch. Then the feds should have taken turns anally raping him. Then they should have taken a shotgun to his nutsack and left to die in a pool of his own blood."
Dude, come on. On the one hand, you can write something like this, and on the other, you complain about the violence and immorality of the show?
But you have avoided one of the main premises of The Sopranos. The Mobsters-R-Us concept provides a kind of mirror on our nation. It contains a cogent critique of the brutality and loneliness and gross consumerism of a culture in which we are all complicit.
An aspect of the finale that I loved was the use of memory, remembering and forgetting, as a kind of commentary on values. We have seen already this season a number of memories threaded into the narrative, but in the finale they are used with a more focused intent. Junior cannot remember Tony and he responds with a vacant “that’s nice” after being told he ran all of New Jersey--he becomes an Alzheimers Ozymandias; the cat staring at Christopher’s image makes both Paulie and Tony uneasy; Tony brings up his unhappy childhood with the therapist and Carmela gives him a warning look to be quiet; and when AJ reminds Tony that he once said to remember the good times, Tony cannot recall. At the point in their lives that they are watching the next generation choose what paths they will take in the future, Tony and his family/Family find that there is nothing in their past that can either inform or console them. It is easier to forget than to face the truth of history.
Connected to this is the self-indulgence and willful avoidance of the brutality upon which their prosperity rests by Meadow and AJ. From the Dylan song in his car, AJ hears, “I’ve got nothing to live up to….some…despise their jobs, their destiny,” but his short-lived attempts at some kind of self-determination (still based on delusion, however) quickly give way in the face of a job in show biz, the comforts of mom’s cooking, and a shiny new car (well, “at least it’s not an SUV”). And Meadow, astonishingly, skirts the reality of Tony’s business by shifting the premise for his arrests to the fact that he is an Italian-American. The past imposes upon the future with a legacy of increasing self-deceit and resignation for these two.
Delusion, denial, no historical memory, blindness to the brutality required for our continued prosperity...that's America.
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This is why I subscribe to Salon
I can always turn to Salon for the perfect analysis of any topic, whether it be the Iraq occupation, Turncoat Joe talking about bombing Iran, or whether or not Chase is brilliant or just an asshole.
At first, I hated the ending, but the more my wife and I discussed it, the more we realized that even though Tony (or his family) didn't "get whacked," he is still trapped, and that is a fitting ending for him. He could be going to jail as a result of the gun charge. He could end up alone in a state mental facility. His kids, who have now come "back to the family" and who, for the most part, have now accepted that denial will always be a part of their lives, will still continue to be affected by life decisions Tony has made for all of them.
This is a job, a life, from which there is no escape of course. Even if Tony decided following his hospitalization that he was going to try to simplify his life and finally have a measure of peace for himself and his family, that path was never really an option for him. His past will always catch up to him. And if we, as viewers, were expecting that Tony could still get killed at any moment, sitting in that restaurant with his family, after the NY boss had been killed and he had made peace with Phil's underlings, then we inherently know that there will never be peace for Tony, even when things are going well. This is who he is, and who he will continue to be. Don't Stop Believing.
My vote is Chase is brilliant.
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The Second Nothing, or Dying In Your Own Arms
Chase's theme is the Livia's: It's all a big nothing. And his ending stays true to this.
You can interpret that phrase so many ways: Existence is meaningless. Nothing we do matters. Everyone is utterly self-centered and ready to be corrupted, co-opted or bought. So: Chase indicts the whole human race.
Or if that's too broad, you can downsize it to TV: It's meaningless, we obsess over its trivialities, we waste our lives watching it. So: Chase indicts our obsession with his creation.
Or you can think of it as being only about death: Remember that AJ heard Livia say this on her deathbed and it was followed by the phrase, "In the end, you die in your own arms." And here the much-reviled Livia was speaking an existential truth: We may live together as a family (and as part of the family of man) but we all die alone.
I've taken care of many dying people, both family members and strangers. It's not only true, as Tony tried to tell Phil, that no one on their deathbed wishes they'd saved more no-show jobs, but also that when someone has an actual dying process (as opposed to a sudden death), priorities shift during it.
While at first relationships are all-important, at the very end of life, in the last few days or hours, people recede into themselves to do whatever final preparations death requires of them. They retreat inward and they die alone. This isn't a tragedy - it's just the reality of death.
Like the Sopranos, the film American Beauty is a supposed indictment of American life and the American family. Yet when I saw it years ago, I thought what it captured so beautifully was the dying process as I've witnessed it in others. The main character, Lester, tells us at the very start that he's already a dead man, and all of his behaviors in the film have their more subtle echo in people I've known who have received a terminal diagnosis. The film ends with his death, and we are treated to a poignant look at his dying thoughts, which center on those good times that Tony urged AJ to focus on - his memories are all about times when he felt love.
So, I wonder, has this whole last season of the Sopranos been about Tony's dying process? That would explain his morbid thoughts, his reflections on the meaning of life (and 'the life' of a mobster) and his awkward yet sincere efforts to leave his children ready for adult life.
If Tony does die at the moment the camera shuts off (a theory I'm partial to) we get no epiphany like Lester's - but then, would we want one? What would Tony's dying thoughts be? Of murders, betrayals and his mother's contempt?
More importantly, I don't think Chase believes consciousness survives death. It ends abruptly, like when you've used up your time on those coin-operated telescopes on that Atlantic City boardwalk. A snap of metal and your field of vision goes black.
Someone once said to me of a relative who was dying and very fearful: "I think not only does he feel, 'How can I exist without the world?' but also 'How can the world exist without me?'"
For some people, the idea that existence would continue without their presence is unimaginable. Tony Soprano seems like one of those people. So Chase ends the series when Tony's consciousness ends, and the big nothing begins.