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.
Well, I’m pretty sure he got whacked. Hope there is not a sequel. One of the things I liked about the show was how it never flinched from showing these people as they really were. Pretty disgusting.
And Carmela was more Olivia than anyone would like to admit. Cause she’s just such a concerned and loving wife and mom. She knew exactly what was what, and IIRC Tony did have Furio whacked. Food for thought. LOL
Furio wasn’t whacked, he went back to Italy.
Yes he did, and I may not remember correctly, but I think Tony had him taken care of. I guess I’ll have to revisit some of the past seasons to see where this idea came from. I thought Tony made a call. Could be wrong tho. Regardless Carmella to me seemed to be much more manipulative than one would like to think. As I said, its all just part of the fun of trying to put the final episode where it belongs. ( That would be a black dark screen and lots of wondering)
Well, some people who saw the episode through ON DEMAND claim that is what they saw. I would like to see that ending myself.
Coronet Blue takes the cake for vague show endings. I’m still pissed it was taken off the air before I figured out what it was about.
Tony did not step into the restaurant.
The Tony in the closing restaurant booth/juke box scenes is the one Tony wants to see as he stands in the door. Uncharacteristic retrospection following on his revere in the back yard before the ending really commences.
The shirt is different, only slightly, but from hospital to restaurant booth the collar changes from grey to black.
Tony is looking into the restaurant - next scene is the imaginary Tony, followed by family as it might have been, surrounded by unsuspended to potential threats.
However, what takes place when Willow, suddenly not in control as usual, completes the familay circle is up for grabs...
(I wonder how an idealized Mafia Don responds to "O'MGod'Daddy - we're pregnant!): ..?)
"Willow" = "Meadow".
'Far as I'm concerned you gaze at willows and step in meadows, but Nortette corrects me once again.
The Tony in the closing restaurant booth/juke box scenes is the one Tony wants to see as he stands in the door. Uncharacteristic retrospection following on his revere in the back yard before the ending really commences.
The shirt is different, only slightly, but from hospital to restaurant booth the collar changes from grey to black.
When I saw the episode last night, I sort of got the impression that Tony was looking at someone that was already in the Diner. Now it makes sense that it was him simply visualizing himself already there. I'll have to watch the episode again.
In the episode you saw was it Tony looking up or Meadow coming through the door (from Tony's POV) that was the very last image...? There are actually two versions of the ending.
Absolutely right. Is was the viewer that gets whacked just like Phil earlier in the episode. Never saw it coming and can't even believe it. Sudden blackness. The audience is still in denial.
See, that’s short-sighted to me.
The best HBO series ever was and has been The Wire. There’s one more season and last season was one of the best things I’ve ever seen in my life (entertainment-wise.) Absolutely riveting.
Rome was great and Big Love and a few other shows coming out look to have potential. At the very least, I’ll see the last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which has generally been better than Seinfeld ever was...
(This is Radiohead’s son on her account)
Did they all get arrested?
Hope so.
I noticed that too about Tony, but I chalked it up to choppy camera work and continuity error, just because it goes on too long to be a dream sequence of sorts.
On another (unrelated) note, after having read some of the stuff on here—not the least of which is this article, I went back and watched the episode again and the first episode of the season, where he has the conversation with Bobby about getting killed. Neither Tony nor Bobby say that you don’t “see” it coming, as is mentioned in the article. Rather, they speculate that you probably don’t hear it.
I think in order to fit their theory of what happened, viewers are fabricating key language in that scene (you don’t see it coming) that just never happened. Reading articles like these yesterday had me pretty well convinced that Tony got it at the end of the show, but having gone back and watched the episodes, I’m almost firmly convinced the other way now. The foreshadowing isn’t there.
Sopranos’ creator’s last word: End speaks for itself
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/sepinwall/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1181623651270570.xml&coll=1&thispage=1
What do you do when your TV world ends? You go to dinner, then keep quiet.
“Sopranos” creator David Chase took his wife out for dinner Sunday night in France, where he fled to avoid “all the Monday morning quarterbacking” about the show’s finale. After this exclusive interview (agreed to before the season began), he intends to let the work — especially the controversial final scene — speak for itself.
“I have no interest in explaining, defending, reinterpreting, or adding to what is there,” he says of the final scene.
“No one was trying to be audacious, honest to God,” he adds. “We did what we thought we had to do. No one was trying to blow people’s minds or thinking, ‘Wow, this’ll (tick) them off.’
“People get the impression that you’re trying to (mess) with them, and it’s not true. You’re trying to entertain them.”
In that final scene, mob boss Tony Soprano waited at a Bloomfield ice cream parlor for his family to arrive, one by one. What was a seemingly benign family outing was shot and cut as the preamble to a tragedy, with Tony suspiciously eyeing one patron after another, the camera dwelling a little too long on Meadow’s parallel parking and a walk by a man in a Members Only jacket to the men’s room. Just as the tension ratcheted up to unbearable levels, the series cut to black in mid-scene (and mid-song), with no resolution.
“Anybody who wants to watch it, it’s all there,” says Chase, 61, who based the series in general (and Tony’s relationship with mother Livia specifically) on his North Caldwell childhood.
Some fans have assumed the ambiguous ending was Chase setting up the oft-rumored “Sopranos” movie.
“I don’t think about (a movie) much,” he says. “I never say never. An idea could pop into my head where I would go, ‘Wow, that would make a great movie,’ but I doubt it.
“I’m not being coy,” he adds. “If something appeared that really made a good ‘Sopranos’ movie and you could invest in it and everybody else wanted to do it, I would do it. But I think we’ve kind of said it and done it.”
Another problem: Over the last season, Chase killed so many key characters. He’s toyed with the idea of “going back to a day in 2006 that you didn’t see, but then (Tony’s children) would be older than they were then and you would know that Tony doesn’t get killed. It’s got problems.”
(Earlier in the interview, Chase noted that often his favorite part of the show was the characters telling stories about the good ol’ days of Tony’s parents. Just a guess, but if Chase ever does a movie spinoff, it’ll be set in Newark in the’60s.)
Since Chase is declining to offer his interpretation of the final scene, let me present two more of my own, which came to me with a good night’s sleep and a lot of helpful reader e-mails:
# Theory No. 1 (and the one I prefer): Chase is using the final scene to place the viewer into Tony’s mind-set. This is how he sees the world: Every open door, every person walking past him could be coming to kill him or arrest him or otherwise harm him or his family. This is his life, even though the paranoia’s rarely justified. We end without knowing what Tony’s looking at because he never knows what’s coming next.
# Theory No. 2: In the scene on the boat in “Soprano Home Movies,” repeated again last week, Bobby Bacala suggested that when you get killed, you don’t see it coming. Certainly, our man in the Members Only jacket could have gone to the men’s room to prepare for killing Tony (shades of the first “Godfather”), and the picture and sound cut out because Tony’s life just did. (Or because we, as viewers, got whacked from our life with the show.)
Meanwhile, remember that 21-month hiatus between Seasons Five and Six? That was Chase thinking up the ending. HBO’s then-chairman Chris Albrecht came to him after Season Five and suggested thinking up a conclusion to the series; Chase agreed, on the condition he get “a long break” to decide on an ending.
Originally, that ending was supposed to occur last year, but midway through production, the number of episodes was increased, and Chase stretched out certain plot elements while saving the major climaxes for this final batch of nine.
“If this had been one season, the Vito storyline would not have been so important,” he says.
Much of this final season featured Tony bullying, killing or otherwise alienating the members of his inner circle. After all those years of viewing him as “the sympathetic mob boss,” were we, like his therapist Dr. Melfi, supposed to finally wake up and smell the sociopath?
“From my perspective, there’s nothing different about Tony in this season than there ever was,” Chase says. “To me, that’s Tony.”
Chase has had an ambivalent relationship with his fans, particularly the bloodthirsty whacking crowd who seemed to tune in only for the chance to see someone’s head get blown off (or run over by an SUV). So was he reluctant to fill last week’s penultimate episode, “The Blue Comet,” with so many vivid death scenes?
“I’m the number one fan of gangster movies,” he says. “Martin Scorsese has no greater devotee than me. Like everyone else, I get off partly on the betrayals, the retributions, the swift justice. But what you come to realize when you do a series is, you could be killing straw men all day long. Those murders only have any meaning when you’ve invested story in them. Otherwise, you might as well watch ‘Cleaver.’”
One detail about the final scene he’ll discuss, however tentatively: the selection of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” as the song on the jukebox.
“It didn’t take much time at all to pick it, but there was a lot of conversation after the fact. I did something I’d never done before: In the location van, with the crew, I was saying, ‘What do you think?’ When I said, ‘Don’t Stop Believin’,’ people went, ‘What? Oh my God!’
“I said, ‘I know, I know, just give a listen,’ and little by little, people started coming around.”
Whether viewers will have a similar time-delayed reaction to the finale as a whole, Chase doesn’t know. (”I hear some people were very angry and others were not, which is what I expected.”) He’s relaxing in France, then he’ll try to make movies.
“It’s been the greatest career experience of my life,” he says. “There’s nothing more in TV that I could say or would want to say.”
Here’s Chase on some other points about the finale and the season:
# After all the speculation Agent Harris might turn Tony, instead we saw Harris had turned, passing along info on Phil’s whereabouts and cheering, “We’re going to win this thing!” when learning of Phil’s demise.
“This is based on an actual case of an FBI agent who got a little bit too partisan and excited during the Colombo wars of the’70s,” Chase says of the story of Lindley DeVecchio, who supplied Harris’ line.
# Speaking of Harris, Chase had no problem with never revealing what — if anything — terror suspects Muhammed and Ahmed were up to.
“This, to me, feels very real,” he says. “For the majority of these suspects, it’s very hard for anybody to know what these people are doing. I don’t even think Harris might know where they are. That was sort of the point of it: Who knows if they are terrorists or if they’re innocent pistachio salesmen? That’s the fear that we are living with now.”
Also, the story — repeated by me, unfortunately — that Fox, when “The Sopranos” was in development there, wanted Chase to have Tony help the FBI catch terrorists isn’t true.
“What I said was, if I had done it at Fox, Tony would have been a gangster by day and helping the FBI by night, but we weren’t there long enough for anyone to make that suggestion.”
# I spent the last couple of weeks wrapping my brain around a theory supplied by reader Sam Lorber (and his daughter, Emily) that the nine episodes of this season were each supposed to represent one of the nine circles of Hell from Dante’s “The Divine Comedy.”
Told of the theory, Chase laughed and said, “No.”
# Since Butchie was introduced as a guy who was pushing Phil to take out Tony, why did he turn on Phil and negotiate peace with Tony?
“I think Butch was an intelligent guy; he began to see that there was no need for it, that Phil’s feelings were all caught up in what was esentially a convoluted personal grudge.”
# Not from Chase, but I feel the need to debunk the e-mail that’s making the rounds about all the Holsten’s patrons being characters from earlier in the series. The actor playing Members Only guy had never been on the show; Tony killed at least one, if not both, of his carjackers; and there are about 17 other things wrong with this popular but incorrect theory.
I stand by me original reaction— Tony was not killed when the screen went blank. The scene was meant to let us see inside Tony’s mind sitting in the diner, wondering which person would be the one to whack him, or when he would be arrested. The paranoid “life” of a Mafia leader...
Well done.
Paris Hilton is an insignificant real person. The Sopranos is a significant addition to American culture. William Faulkner's characters aren't real either but I value them more than Paris Hilton as well
I read a review of ‘The Wild Bunch’ on a Christan movie review site where the writre stated that one’s reaction to the film is either: 1. Root for the murderers. or 2. Regard the violence as meaningless. Either choice being a ‘victory for Satan.’
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