Posted on 06/11/2007 4:33:46 AM PDT by Mobile Vulgus
I have been perusing the message boards tonight to see the reaction to the series ending episode of The Sopranos and it seems the natives are restless. Many seem to feel it is a cop out and that all the creators of the show did was set it up for a possible feature film or a "to be continued" at some other time. They say they are disappointed with this "non-ending."
I can't disagree more.
In fact, I think it is a brilliant ending that befits the entire series.
What made this series is that there was always a sense of foreboding, a sense that violent death could occur at any time. It pervaded the series through and through. At the end of some episodes, when nothing bad happened, you never felt a sense of relief. Maybe a tad bit of disappointment, but never relief. No relief was ever in the offing because there was more to come and the violence and shock was always just around the corner. The tension never let up.
Tony seemed like the lovable rake until he snapped and strangled someone with his bare hands his friends were never safe from either his ire or the ire of those he crossed. This is one of the few series where major characters died in every season. From Big Pussy, to Chris' girlfriend Adriana, to Christopher himself, among so many others, major character's lives were never safe during the run of this show. Just like that of real gangsters who's lives dangle by a thread because of their unsettled and dangerous avocation.
(Warning, spoilers are here. If you have not seen the episode do not read further)
The whole last show was replete with warnings of death. Talismans of death and harbingers float in and out of frame. It swirls around Tony like a whirlwind. Yet, as the show progresses, we come to think he and the surviving members of his crew might be out of the woods.
We maybe even get the haunting feeling that doomed Uncle Junior is still on his game as Tony confronts him at long last in the mental ward. Joon gives a slight, sardonic smile during Tony's questioning. Is he still in there? Playing at the mental case to escape his fate? Maybe, maybe not. We never get a full answer, but doubt remains. Hope remains that he isn't lost to the mists of mental degradation.
AJ seems back on track, Meadow, Tony's daughter is doing well, Sil is not, but at least he's alive. Things might be OK at long last?
The family has all come out of hiding sure that they have made nice with the bosses in New York. It all went too far, they say. It's done. Even the Fed that has occasionally slipped Tony intel over the years accidentally let's his relief over come him in front of another agent. "We WON!", he yelps, only to become self-conscious by the outburst.
Still, as Tony sits down with his family to eat in a highly public, family styled restaurant, we aren't sure it's over. There's that tension still. Something still seems unresolved, something unsettling is still hanging over us. Tony sits with his back to the doors to the bathrooms. A goomba looking man has been staring at Tony from the counter since he entered. What is this guy's problem? Why does he keep glancing at Tony. He seems smooth, not worried. What gives him this sense of resolve? Is he not aware that Jersey and New York have made up? What is his deal?
The goomba lurches past the booth where Tony sits and disappears into the darkness of the doorway that is situated at Tony's back. We see him no more in these waning seconds of the episode.
Meadow is having trouble parallel parking, but finally gets the chore done. She runs across the street to join her family at the booth inside the restaurant. Will she get hit by a car as she hurriedly crosses the street? What seems so uncomfortable? We hear the bell of the restaurant door opening.
Tony looks up with that affable expression.
Then...
The screen goes black.
No music plays as the credits roll.
End series.
WHAT??? THAT'S IT??? Scream these disgruntled fans on the message boards. "This is ALL there is to the ending?", they carp.
Yes, that's it. And I'll tell you why it is brilliant.
This series wasn't really "The Sopranos", this series was Tony Soprano. It is and was all about him. From the therapist's office to the Bada Bing to the kitchen getting coffee to the occasional bloody murder, this show was all about Tony Soprano.
Now, remember a few episodes back when Tony and his doomed brother in Law, Bobby, were talking in that boat on the lake? Remember how they were saying that no one hears or sees the one that ends up getting you in the end? Bobby sure didn't. He turned around in a toy store and two full magazines of 9MM bullets from two New York thugs snuffed him out. He didn't even have a chance to say a word. One minute admiring a toy train the next split second cast into the great here after.
Boom, boom, boom. Over. There was no indication he even realized what was happening.
So, here we have that last scene of the series. A goomba looking man enters a black doorway behind Tony. Tony looks up to see Meadow enter the restaurant at the tingling of the door bell.
Then blackness.
You see, Tony neither heard nor saw the "one that got him".
And, since the show was all about Tony Soprano, when he ceased to be... so did the show.
Blackness.
No more music.
Into the great here after.
Brilliant.
And at long last, the tension is over. And we all get our just rewards in the end.
My take was:
“Look. This is a world of fatally compromised and often banal people, especially brutalizing to families. Also, for the active criminal participants, it’s a life where you must be eternally be looking over your shoulder, for many of the individuals around you at any public moment could be the agent of your death.
“We’ve all had fun, for eight years, with the conceit that it’s something else - or at least that it’s substantially also something else - but here is the overriding reality of what such lives are”.
‘Felt the same way at that point. Michael going into the restroom to retrieve the hidden gun............’
I take it he didn’t come out of there with just his you-know-what in his hands.’
Thats what made the ‘black screen’ so good. EVerybody who saw it - After Ensuring their Cable hadn’t gone ‘out’ - then created in their own minds what took place next.
I have to admit I kept looking at the clock as the hour ended, I was sure he was going to get ‘whacked’ one way or the other, and after seeing ‘Phil’ get his in front of his sister and kids, figured Tony would get it right there at the table.
LOL!
I never get tired of that!
Go with your first feeling. That non-ending just sucked. "I'll end it by not ending it" what is that crap?
Since Chase made an effort to give his version of a morality play (Republicans = bad) in many of the episodes, I wonder why he didn't bother to show the criminal get his final punishment.
Can you post the site for the analysis ? Thanks.
Godfather II ended perfectly. Michael sitting alone on the park bench, leaving us to contemplate what his life was beyond that point.
Then Godfather III came along and ruined it all. Chase won’t make that same mistake.
No, as I recall Tony’s sister was not at the diner.
Right. Godfather III had the same ending with the Don sitting at a table in Sicily looking desolate.
Carnivale had to disappear.
The change of evil to the maid made no sense.
Welcome to Tony’s world for the rest of his life— whether he has a short or long life left is not particularly relevant. It’s the WAY that he has to live that is important, and we got to feel that just a little bit.
Genius ending. There was no way to tie up everything anyway.
There's a scene like that in Goodfellas, where one of the characters sits in a diner with his paranoid thoughts running in a voiceover. Anyone in the place could be preparing to kill him - the waiter, another customer - anybody. Chase conveyed those same feelings, but without the voiceover.
I agree with the posts that like the ending. I watched the black screen. I watched the credits, just in case it dove back in and something happened. I didn’t like the ending at first; I wanted closure. But the more time goes by, the more I like the ending and think it’s “realistic.” Tony flipping doesn’t make sense given what we know about Tony. Tony dying doesn’t make sense with Leotardo out of the way. Tony getting indicted makes perfect sense, but is anti-climactic and is clearly in the works anyway, he will get his in the end . . . so . . . life goes on, smaller, with most of his “friends” and crew dead, mad, or dying, and his son working for a porn producer and his daughter getting into law because of the things she’s seen . . . no one is left uncorrupted. Screen to black. It grows on you.
I didn’t watch it. TV is nothing but leftist trash and I won’t have it in my house.
Chase used the fact that it was the finale, and the fact that we all knew it was going to be over in a few minutes, to great effect by giving us that sense of almost paranoia about every scene, especially the last diner scene, and the Meadow car park scene, what is going to happen.
What would it be like to have such thoughts whenever we went into public? Wouldn't it be terrible? That's what it's like being Tony, the head of a dysfunctional dying Mob family.
A Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid ending. Common since the beginning of moving pictures.
I didn't see your post. The Internet is nothing but leftist trash, and computers serve as the portal to hell. I refuse to log on.
no matter what you thought of the ending, the way Phil Leotardo went out was...well...crushing...
At least for him....it was funny too.
Oh, I read your very first post. Which is why I quoted it in its entirety in my response.
So let me type this slow so you can understand it and I will try not to go down the name calling road you decided to take.
While not for your stated reason, I'm sure you type quite slowly indeed. I think you began the trip down the "name calling road" when you asked about "stupid questions."
First I havent whined about anything.
Of course you have. Poor little you, an oppressed Italian-American, have been victimized by a show you believe to be portraying Italian-Americans in a negative light.
I stated an opinion about a news item.
And I gave you my opinion of your admittedly completely uninformed opinion.
I guess that isnt allowed in your world Stalin.
Let me get this straight: if I disagree with your opinion, I am Stalin. That's brilliant - please take me through that chain of logical inference so I can understand better.
I do watch television but only programs that stimulate the intelligence.
You have a remarkably strong tolerance for stimulants then, it would seem. How exactly does a TV program stimulate one's intelligence, may I ask?
Yes I do know that Hollywood glorifies mob life.
Regardless of what "Hollywood" as an abstract entity generically does, The Sopranos - a program you admit you have never seen - does not glorify mob life at all.
Like I said in a previous post Hollywood glorifies it, the public consumes it, especially rappers and then they act it out in real life in our streets.
The Sopranos shows the inherent stupidity, futility and meaningless of gangster life. That lifestyle is not glamorized in any way on the program.
But only and uninformed moron couidnt see that.
You haven't even watched an episode of the show you are opining on. You are the uninformed moron on this topic - and I suspect any other you comment on.
I loved it. I cracked up when the screen went to black. Chase played me like a fiddle. The tension of the last five minutes, the Godfatheresque guy going to the bathroom, the thugs at the jukebox, Meadow having problems parking the car, then running across the street, Tony looking up every time someone walked into the place...classic.
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