Posted on 01/14/2021 9:49:12 AM PST by ChicagoConservative27
This is a discussion, no need to agree, just so long as we’re having fun.
Yes Melfi is in the series nearly til the end. But THAT plot thread is done when she decided not to be corrupted by the temptation of mob justice. Then it’s time for other Melfi threads.
I always found the Raiders coda to be basically a good joke. All this effort put into finding one of the most important antiquities imaginable, which also can potentially be a potent weapon, and it just winds up in a warehouse somewhere, gone from the world again.
Yeah Chase could have cut to black anywhere. But it ended where it was important. With his family. Maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t gone artsy, gotten the whole family together, had them start talking about normal old family stuff, drop out the sound, fade back from the family, cut to the outside of the diner, and fade to black, story over. The hard cut and prolonged blank screen seems to be what really throws people off. In the end the story had to end, Chase wasn’t going to blow Tony away (and given how many whacks Tony had survived would we actually have believed he was dead?) because he didn’t want to have original version of Scarface “comeuppance” ending. Going to trial would have been boring. So the story just ends.
Let me be clear. I liked the show. I initially posted my “one complaint.” I also enjoy debate without the snark that some other posters seem compelled to interject.
The rape storyline is not my only or even main objection. The other one about the guy they were trying to kill and they got stuck in the woods in the car eating catsup packs was bigger. There WOULD have been repercussions but they just dropped it.
I simply maintain it would have been better had these huge events had at least echoes of after effects. Maybe the shrink’s attention wonders during sessions, or the guys see a newspaper article that the dude they were trying to kill froze to death in the woods. It doesn’t take much.
As for the endings, when Humphrey Bogart says the famous line about a beautiful relationship, the character arc was completed. In my opinion there was no such closure to the Sopranos. There could have been a line like that but instead Chase refused to square the circle.
There would have been repercussions. But again you have to decide which story your telling. If the name of the show was Dr Melfi Mob Shrink then that’s a more central story to tell. But it’s The Sopranos and the second she decided not to be corrupted it was no longer a Sopranos story.
I’ve seen Chase discuss Pine Barrens (killer in the woods) at length. Part of what happened with that is nobody came up with a good story. The writers room kept wanting to close that loop and Chase wasn’t terribly against it. But all the story ideas just didn’t interest him. Thus why he dismisses it as the guy probably decided it was an approved hit and just left.
Chase was actually very deliberate in wanting to avoid that kind of closure throughout the run. And in other things he’s done since he got the power to do what he wants. He’s given a lot of interviews talking about his dislike for that kind of bow tying. He likes to view his stories as part of the people’s larger narrative. And real life doesn’t tie up in bows. We don’t generally have definable chapters, unless we take a very narrow view. You can see one job as a chapter, but you’ll have people in your life from before it, and some people from that job will continue to be in your life after. So he was just never going to do that. So much of Sopranos was people cycling into the story and cycling out, just like in life. For him the viewer was the same. We cycled into Tony’s life, then out. Just like strippers at the Bing.
It was not a smarmy insult, although you apparently took it as negatively and personally as you did the inconclusive rape story. So again, find a constructive outlet for your frustration over that plot issue. You appear outvoted on this thread.
With all due respect, I suggest you go fornicate yourself. That’s a storyline I can approve.
“Chase was actually very deliberate in wanting to avoid that kind of closure throughout the run.”
That’s what I’ve posted, and didn’t agree with him on this. As I also wrote, it didn’t ruin the show for me or anything, I just don’t like those kinds of dead ends.
I see your point about the loose ends in the story, but I disagree with you about the ending.
I thought it was perfect, in the poetic sense.
JMHO. I have friends who will point out that The Sopranos ending doesn’t happen in real mob life. Fair enough, I believe them.
I liked the ending because they set it up perfectly, for the observant viewer. It was great TV, with “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey playing. That’s probably what Tony would have played at the jukebox.
Very much looking forward to the movie. I hope Edie Falco has a part in it. Maybe a different character, a little older?
Sorry, I forgot to copy you to my previous post.
Ducking now. :)
There was no ending it just stopped.
There was also a guy in a Carhartt vest and a USA hat...
I’m not gonna explain it to you.
John Belushi never explained his gags on SNL the way Dennis Miller did.
If you didn’t get it, it’s no big deal anyway. It was just a story on TV.
You should explain it to David Chase. He said there was no meaning, no ending. It just stopped.
Well, “Finis” then, The End.
Liked it myself.
The End.
You stay classy, now, hear?
Following your lead.
I kinda like it. Gives stories verisimilitude. But it’s cool. Everybody got their own thing. Nice talk.
The interior decorator? His place looked like $hit!
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