Letters to the Editor
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Salon's letters thread is excellent
Salon's letter thread on this is excellent, although some people seem compelled to post even though they know absolutely nothing about the show.
Take for example shotsie, who wastes our time by pondering:
So, what law firm would hire a Soprano???....
Anyway, she would need to go to some super law school first, which may or may not happen. And then, at least in the NYC area, any law firm worth it's salt would notice that last name and what that means - they would be hiring a Mafia chief's daughter, with all the peril involved in that decision. I just don't buy it (I didn't buy pre-med either. But it's TV land...)
She's already in law school, shotsie. And they discussed what law firm would hire her - the same firm her expected husband is in. They had a scene where they discussed Meadow's dinner with partners of the firm. I suggest, you know, watching the show before you comment next time.
Meadow is going off to change the world by working for a white collar criminal defense firm. For $170K as a first year associate, she will be helping in the defense of people like the crooked politician they discussed last night. It is biting fiction from Chase - that and the Meadow-Tony exchange I wrote about below - and I'm sorry if you missed it.
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The Sopranos goes dark
The most ironic/saddest part of the Finale showed AJ and his girl sitting in the SUV listening to Bob Dylan. Which of those sages commented: And just think, he recorded this so long ago (or something close.
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Guy at counter is the owner.
His real name is Paolo Colandrea and he's is the owner of the restaurant used for the scene. For the "Nick Leotardo" theory is based on the idea that Paolo Colandrea is the actor that played Nick and that just isn't the case. Nick Leotardo isn't listed in the final credits. The show just ended that's all there is and David Chase had a good one on us, after providing five of the most tension filled moments ever.
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The ultimate whack
I GET IT! I GET IT! Standing in the shower this morning, it hit me. Chase, as the Godfather of the show, put one in my head last night. It was my sick emotional investment in the whole show that got whacked. It was the unseen handgun coming up silently to the side of my head. The bullet entered my brain and I never heard it coming. Brilliant!
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Loved Every Minute
I don't think people have been this agitated over the ending to a television series since The Prisoner, which in some ways was so similar, I almost expeted to hear "the hip bone's connected to the thigh bone..." playing over the credits.
Chase played on the philosophy of dualism throughout the series - the Western idea of opposites and the Eastern idea of co-existance (and karma) - so the revelation to me was in the Hal Holbrook character attempting to explain the physics of the boxing match.
So we leave the Soprano's sitting down to onion rings instead of baked ziti. Made in America.
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
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No one likes series finales
I knew the instant that last night's Sopranos credits rolled that no one would like the finale. No one ever likes series finales. The MASH finale sucked. The Seinfeld finale sucked. The Cheers finale sucked. The Friends finale sucked. The only series finale I can recall that people really liked was Newhart's (if you recall, there is chaos in the Loudon family inn, when suddenly Bob Newhart awakens from a nightmare, not as Bob Loudon, but as Dick Hartley, his character from The Bob Newhart Show, with the lovely Suzanne Pleshette as his lovely wife, Emily) But that only worked because no one was really emotionally invested with the characters from Newhart. No one was gripping the arms of their recliners thinking, "What happens to the inn? What happens to the guy who speaks in alliterations all the time? WHAT HAPPENS TO LARRY, DARRYL AND DARRYL???????"
So the final scene of the show establishes the Family of Four at a diner in New Jersey. I learn from a diary entry on Slate.com that this is a hugely popular family diner in its particular town, an institution among locals that everyone loves and everyone is happy to go to -- the kind of place every town has, or should have, if it has any character at all. (I recall an all-night dive in my native Cleveland called The Big Egg that would feed greasy bacon and eggs to the broadest imaginable array of humanity every night after the bars closed, until the Department of Health finally did their regrettable duty and shut the beautiful old disease pit down.) Going to the restaurant seems to be a last-second change of plans, so it's impossible that a hitman would be lying in wait there for Our Antihero. Unless he was informed by Someone Who Knew. But the only people who Seem to Know are the family members themselves. Could one of them have flipped on Tony? Or did they tell someone else who had?
The camera lingers over several details. A fairly Meditteranean-looking man is sitting at the counter, who seems to be giving the Soprano family several furtive glances. The camera cuts to him several times. After six seasons, the viewer is trained to know that cameras don't just linger on strangers sitting at lunch counters for no reason. This man is up to something. Is he the guy that's going to whack Tony?
A.J. enters right behind another guy, entering so closely behind him that it almost looks like they're together. Who is this other guy? A buddy? A very unsatisfying alternative to Rhiannon? It seems that he's just some mook who walked into the restaurant at the same time. Is he the guy that's going to whack Tony?
Two African-American guys enter the restaurant. Are they going to do it? Could the Mob, with its famous racism, ever trust a hit like this to Black guys?
The guy at the counter stands up and walks towards the Soprano's booth. Oh, man, this is it! Only he hangs a looie and heads for the loo. So it's not him. But wait... we all saw Godfather I... that's where Michael's gun was hidden for his first hit.
Meadow is having trouble parallel parking her car in what seems to be an ample parking space. Maybe she's just really bad at parallel parking. But it seems to add tension to the scene. Is she being set up by her clumsy parking skills to survive a mass family assassination? But as was explicitly established in the previous episode, "This Thing of Ours" doesn't touch families. Maybe she enters just as the hitman raises his gun to Tony's head, to shout out, "LOOK OUT, DADDY!!" to allow Tony to dodge a point blank shot?
Or maybe they're all just red herrings.
We aren't allowed to know, because the scene goes to a sudden blackout, and at least 45% of all viewers watching think, "HOLY SHIT, MY CABLE WENT OUT!!" (at least until the credits roll) and another 50% think, "THAT'S IT?????" and the other 5% are overly-educated aesthetes like me who think, "Interesting..."
So what happened to Tony? Some people think it's obvious he got shot. Others think it's obvious that he survived and David Chase was just fucking with our heads one last time. But obviously, nothing is obvious. It would only be obvious if he showed us -- showed us SOMETHING, if only at least the gun-holding hand appearing in the frame, like the one we knew would appear next to Phil Leotardo's dome as he was waving bye-bye to his grandchildren.
Here's how I see it...
What are three possible endings for Tony Soprano?
1. He gets whacked. (eminently possible)
2. He gets thrown in jail. (eminently imminent)
3. - and the best possible happy ending he can possibly hope for -- he survives and goes on with his life, in perpetual fear of getting whacked or thrown in jail.
That's Tony's happy ending. He gets to live, with this eternal black cloud over his head.
Here's what I think happened after the blackout. Tony orders the pot roast, Carmela the meat loaf, Meadow the soup and salad and A.J. the burger and fries. They all have a round of ice cream for dessert and go home happy and fed. And Tony wakes up the next day and pisses someone else off, and the cycle of fear continues.
Perhaps continuing to a two-hour feature coming to a theater near you.