I predicted that the Soprano family would be together in the last scene of the last episode. No force on earth could separate those four people. That's point #1.

Point #2 is that the Family Soprano, by going to a truckstop diner, instead of an Italian restaurant, were out of their element. Chase does this to demonstrate that (Point #3) a good director can make drama and suspense out of anything: Italians eating onion rings, Meadow having trouble parallel parking, strange men staring at Tony, whatever.

Chase's final (#4) point is that he could keep spinning this yarn forever, and it would always been brilliant, but it's HIS yarn, HIS franchise, and when he says it's over, it's over.

Sorry - I didn't realize that you were referring to another dude who didn't watch. By bad...

There is often pain associated with disillusionment - especially when said disillusionment is forced upon us by another. Thus all the angry and irritated reactions immedietely following the close of the Sopranos series finale. That sense of betrayal was the pain of David Chase flouting convention and teaching us, however painfully, to try to understand television drama in a new way.

David Chase created one of the most spellbinding, suspenseful and adrenalin-pumped moments in the history of Television. Further, he wittily filled it with allusions to both other great mob stories as well as to the show's own past (these are all somewhat speculative, but still - great fun):

• The "Italian-looking" guy at the bar is allegedly Nikki Leotardo
• The trucker was the brother of the guy who was robbed by Christopher in Season 2
• The boy scouts were in the train store
• The black guys at the end were the ones who tried to kill Tony and only clipped him in the ear (although this one may have been refuted because one of them may have been killed)

Anyway...

Chase owes us nothing.

As with all really exceptional art, it takes time and reflection for the beholder to understand what the art means to themselves.

It's no surprise that already with a day between us and that abrupt black screen we are collectively realizing that the final scene was much richer, allusive and elusive than we thought. Just look at how much this has made us all think. Look at the creative interpretations blossoming.

How much more mundane and banal our comments would have been if Tony had simply been whacked in front of us family and us. What would there be to talk about? To think about?

The Sopranos finale has truly inspired us. And that's all good art is supposed to do. Simply inspire us to think (what did it mean?) and feel (irritation, anger, joy, enlightenment, SOMETHING).

Seemed like a meandering and inconclusive final episode even before the black out. There did not seem to be any way that things would not still be considered unsettled and dangerous for Tony, yet he and others did not seem to pay any attention to being careful. Indeed, overall, in the last episodes, there did not seem to be any rhyme or reason to when they were taking precautions and when not.

The final black out might make sense as Tony getting shot in the head, if the rest of the series had been told from a first person perspective, but it wasn't. I do not think that David Chase could think of an ending, so he just did not bother to end it, leaving open later shows, movie, anything and everything. Most of the actual final episode was simply a tease that something was about to happen, and nothing ever did. That seems cheap.

Before the final show folks suggested that it would end with Tony and Carmela just chatting over day to day problems. I would say that this is pretty much the ending David Chase gave us. A very good series. Who really cares how it ends or does not actually end.

Beautiful dawdler, perfect.

Hector the Crow:

Not everything was resolved, and much is ambiguous, but it wasn't open ended to the point of Rorschach abstraction, Chase did make statements.

***

How can you bring a show like the Sopranos to any kind of summation? You can't. But you can use the opportunity of a final episode to comment on the state of the national psyche, using the cast as analogues. I think Heather was on the right track with her reaction. The last episode was primarily about America, the America of today - the "fucked up world" Meadow accurately perceives (but what ya gonna do?). We're left with the inevitabilities of paranoia and escapism. After the shock of the blackout, I'm finding it more and more satisfying, the more I think about it.

I haven't heard or seen anything today that captures it, the show and the episode, any better than that.

as far I know. The characters have been true to themselves. The few public comments he has made all ring true. He has not abused the deus ex machina device. There have been no un-telegraphed "it was all just a dream" cop-outs.
That is why I believed him when he said that he knew how he wanted to end it from the time he started it.
That's why I believe there will be no feature movie , nor a resurrection of any kind.
I also think that it was as good an ending to the series as one could hope for.

I never read it, but doesn't James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake" end in the middle of a sentence, with no resolution? I may have to go find and read it.

Ms. Havrilesky said...

Tony may not have eaten lead

I don't know. I think Chase did the only thing he could have, because ANY ending would disappoint. The nihilism of Tony's life demands that kind of oblivion that ended it.

Look at the gangster genre, and what're the established options? 1) gunned down by: a) the authorities; b) gang rivals; 2) go to jail; 3) enter the Witness Protection Program ("happy" ending #1); 4) die of old age ("happy" ending #2). There's really nowhere else to go for a mobster in the genre.

Maybe Chase was just dishing out cruel and unusual punishment, but I think Tony WAS bumped off by the shady-looking guy, but it's purely based on Gandolfini's expression as it snaps to black, his last, empty, desolate look, soundtrack cut off in mid-lyric -- just like how death comes to mobsters: unexpected, without a lot of fanfare, no speeches, no epic struggles: two to the head, bada-bing! It's like when boxers talk about how you never see the punch that knocks you out -- it just hits you, and you're flat on your back. Game over.

Tony's expression and the set-up with the guy in the restaurant made me think that he died. Chase didn't have to show the bullet, show the reaction, because it was all there in Tony's whole life, which had been seen every season, like the Sword of Damocles, hanging over his head.

The Angel of Death was always near him, and any reaction shot would have been both too much (and too little) -- what, Tony lying face-down in a plate of onion rings, ketchup mixed with blood, while his family freaks, and the shooter walks out of the place, the camera going to a crane shot, while Journey keeps on playing, slow fade to black? Fuggedaboudit.

No, I like the snap fade, like pulling the plug. Like a bullet to the head. I think Tony's dead, right in front of his family. The guy shot him, and there's nothing Tony or anybody else could do anything about it. Less is more -- the not showing it makes it all the more powerful, as people's reactions clearly indicate.

What's brilliant about it is that so very many examples of the genre going the established routes (done to death, eh?), whereas Chase's ending puts it out there in a new, cool way.