Letters to the Editor
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Lights Out
Nobody home? or Brilliant ending? I admit, I was a bit miffed last night (although I enjoyed listening to my wife continue to laugh 10 minutes after Phil was crushed). Thanks to Heather and my fellow Salon readers, I have come to appreciate the ending a lot more.
The black out theory is an interesting one and makes sense given the circular nature of the show. Meadow whacking Tony is also interesting but completely unrealistic and out of character. However, I do think Meadow survives and watches the rest of her family get whacked. I've always thought Chase was setting up Meadow to eventually take over the family (who else would it be? Whiny A.J.? Whiny Janice? Whiny Paulie? Um, I don't think so). The whole show has been about the emasculation of men and the power of women (Livia, anybody?) -- hell, even the show's title is a castration joke. So, I vote for Meadow as new head of the family who solidifies her position by avenging her dead mother, father and brother (she's got the brains, just like Michael Corleone). Of course there'll be a great power struggle with Janice. Looking forward to the movie...
The cat? Hated the friggin' cat. I like the letter's that explain it as Schrödinger's cat (which also helps explain Tony seeing himself in the diner booth), but, except for maybe during the show's dream sequences, since when did the show delve into anything approaching quantum mechanics? And if it's not supposed to be Schrödinger's cat, since when did the show delve into the supernatural and/or reincarnation? I thought it was a cheesy device.
Finally, hats off to Heather for writing another brilliant TV essay and kudos to the copywriter or editor who came up with the headline. A great television inside joke (when a show ends or goes on hiatus, it "goes dark") for a show filled with inside jokes.
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Great Show, Great Ending
Tony said it to Melfi early on..."guys like me either end up dead or in jail." Which is it? Does it matter? Not to Chase and not to me. Both possibilities are in place. Like all of us, Tony and family live with a sword of disaster over their heads. A hit? An indictment? Whatever. We get together for dinner, get frustrated over parking problems, focus on little things, ignore the fact that in the long run we're gone. That's how it goes.
The brilliance of the ending is that it raised tension to a point of paranoia where anything could have happened. Then it just stopped. This series didn't end. It just stopped. Chase left us in the middle of the Soparano lives. They are not dead. They are not over. They are just no longer living out their lives in front of us, whatever that life is. I don't think I've ever seen anything on television as powerful or affecting as this episode.
Chase's greatest talent and curse is that he created art that appealed across a wide spectrum of tastes and interests. Finally he just presented art as he saw fit and did not care who he left unsatisfied. What a way to go.
Made in America. Yes indeed.
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The Sopranos as indictment of family values
So much for family values. We all saw how Tony's family, especially his wife, acted as enablers. Maybe that was the secret to his survival: to the end, his family enabled him in his criminal enterprise. None of the other crooks in the story had as close a family as Tony. They mostly got whacked.
The ending was realistic: we all know how strong families survive. And probably the most immoral person of all was Carmela, the chief enabler who kept it all together.
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the Cat
the poster Turbot was right on about the cat being Schrodinger's Cat - a theory about experimentation taking into consideration different observations or views. There is a section where Albert Einstien wrote a letter to the scientist who wrote about the theory, it ended with:
"Nobody really doubts that the presence or absence of the cat is something independent of the act of observation."
The cat in the Sopranos symbolized the presence of the "there is something more to this, something else out there" that Tony spoke of when he was speaking with Dr. Melfi and with Paulie in the last episode. Paulie saw the cat as a "threat" as Paulie was scared after seeing the Virgin Mary and was superstitious, and was not accepting of the "something else" and Tony accepted the cat, let it do its own thing. Tony accepts the Something else out there, and has his own interpretations of what else is out there. When Paulie snaps out of it, the cat again walks up and Paulie is left pondering.
We are also left to interpreting the ending, also being the cat. We all know the ending of the show happened, but some of us interpret the black out as Tony getting shot and killed, or Tony going on forever (normal life span).
Why did the cat like Chris (his picture) so much? Maybe because in a way Chris was a martyr for the "something else out there" way of thinking, or because he died because of how Tony interpreted his bad luck - it was clear that Tony was unlucky, but Tony interpreted his luck changing for the better possibly because of the death of Chris.
Not sure how much sense that last paragraph makes, but at least I think this is a good explanation of the cat... at least it is how I am interpreting it.
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It means what you want it to mean
I'm reminded of a, perhaps apocraphyl, story from an American lit professor in college who said an extensive computer analysis of the text of Moby Dick, attempting to find some profundity, revealed the most common noun was....whale. Go figure. Spend hours analyzing what happened when the screen went black if you'd like. It doesen't matter. Chase ended his story by embracing the ambiguity that made it different from season one. You can make a case for them all dying. You can make a case for them all living. It's the journey...or should I write Journey, that matters. These characters remain who they are...who they have always been. Tony is a killer. Tony loves his family. Each character remains true to their natures...as we all remain true to our natures. The cat? It's a cat. Who knows why they do what they do? They're cats. They just are.