I lost the sort of reverent awe for the Sopranos that would have led me to be upset about the ending several seasons back, so I can't say that I was genuinely disappointed by the disappointing conclusion. At the end of the day, every single episode of this final demi-season has been eminently watchable which is more than you can say of, say, the dream episodes from the previous demi-season or else the vast majority of other television shows.
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Anticlimax
10 Jun 2007 11:49 pm
Comments (57)
Spurs were up by 20. Why not?
Theories on what the hell happened? Like, seriously?
I'll add that I'm not a big Sopranos fan, but I thought the ending was quite good.
So, even though there are rebroadcasts and on-demand, you watched Sopranos over the NBA Finals?
DVR, son. Record the first hour of the Finals. Watch The Sopranos. Switch over to your recording -- skip ads and the halftime show. You catch up to real time and watch the end of the game live.
I did the opposite, DVR'd the Sopranos, and switched from the game to the Sopranos at about 9:30 or so, and then caught the 4th quarter comeback. But I admit, Matthew's way is probably smarter.
Antid, the series ended with an abrupt cut to black. Seriously.
the series ended with an abrupt cut to black
Yes, but what does it mean? Jeez.
On the one hand, you can think everything is normal and life goes on. I tend to think Tony got whacked, and never saw it coming.
I liked the finale. A lot more closure than I expected, and a happy ending of sorts. Meadow and A.J. also look like they're both headed towards careers well-suited to their background.
Fred, you call that a happy ending? Meadow is prepping to be a mob lawyer and AJ's fragile conscience crumbles at the offer of some bling?
I thought the ending was Chase's way of saying "FU, let me show how easy it is to build tension, but any doofus can do that, I wont; give you the satisfaction" Meadow having trouble parking the car and puloling out into traffic was building to all kinds of stuff, she coudl get hit by a random car. Meanwhile all the tension building in the diner, all kind sof potential hitters. For a while I thought it would be my guess, everyone in the family whacked except Meadow, then she becomes Michael Corleone, but that is to cheap nd chliched.
My guess is the blank screen meant nothing. That was the point, after all this time they are right where they started, no one grew at all.
I thought a lot of the little touches were brilliant, The FBI guy having a pool about which mobseter ends on top and subetly helping Tony so he could win, so much better than any possible master plan to entrap/flip Tony. AJ losing all his social concsious the minute his dad gets him a cushy movie production job and new Beamer. Jr not remembering anything. Paulie as pathetic as ever.
IN all fairness to Fred, such an outcome is indeed the happiest one could expect from the circumstances at hand. The Sopranos are a crime family: that they were not massacred wholesale - for certain, anyway - makes for a pretty rosy finish.
The ending may have been happy (or at least not a certain tragedy) for the Soprano family, but it presumably was a bust for most fans - me included.
Bad ending. I cant wait till the Dvd comes out, as I heard they shot 2 other endings.
As Matt noted, the only redeeming thing about the end was that it put a capstone on the obvious decline of this once first-rate show. If Sopranos had pulled six superb seasons, and then closed with this, it would have been a greater travesty.
There is always Entourage.
Al:
I doubt Tony got wacked at the end. He negotiated a truce with the New York family, and caused Phil to come to an inauspicious end at the gas station in Islip.
The last scene was mainly Chase just fucking with us, but also making the point that Tony will always have some measure of suspense in his life -- the "piano hanging over his head" as Carmela put it earlier this season. But he's a survivor, and there are no mortal threats to him as we leave him -- just another pending indictment.
Things are looking up for A.J., an aspiring Menahem Golan perhaps. Meadow has grown up to actually buy the crap about Italians being persecuted by the state ("New Jersey?" Tony asks, incredulous), and is on her way to becoming a Bruce Cutler-type mob lawyer.
All in all, much better than last week.
Well, they borrowed the abrubt cut to black silence from the John Sayles movie Limbo with Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. They did the exact same thing in that movie, cutting to black 2 seconds before you know how the movie is going to end. Sayles probably borrowed the trick from other older movies I'm sure.
Personally I find it rather unsatisfying but then I like closure. Not nearly as bad as the final Seinfeld episode. But just left me cold. Like they couldn't figure out how they wanted to end it so they just broke it off.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, Fred. Yet, remember that just last episde they flashed back to the conversation about you never hearing the one that gets you. Moreover, the abruptness of the cut-to-black would seem to signify the abruptness of getting whacked in that method. And the unusualness that there was no music playing over the credits...
Chris Conway: The Ezra peeps theory is not convincing to me. We see lots of stuff that isn't from Tony's perspective. We saw plenty even when Tony was in a coma. Suddenly the show wants us to believe that when he dies the lights go out? It's not that that ending couldn't work, but Chase can't expect it to make sense that way when he's been repeatedly violating the narrative conventions that would allow it to. Except that if Tony's not dead, why the suddenly black screen? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
I guess what I'm saying is that the "Tony is dead" theory is the only one that makes even a particle of sense to me, but I don't think it makes any sense for Chase to have done it that way. It's unintelligible.
I'll also admit that I just really like ambiguous endings. I love the ending of Lost in Translation, for example, although I think most people get annoyed that they don't know what is said.
PS: Plus, who was supposed to have killed him? Phil's underlings agreed to let him be hit, so there's no retaliation coming from that direction.
We see lots of stuff that isn't from Tony's perspective. We saw plenty even when Tony was in a coma. Suddenly the show wants us to believe that when he dies the lights go out?
What? You're not making sense. The sudden cut to black simply means Tony dies at that instant (recall the conversation with Bobby flashbacked at the end of last night's episode). The fact that Tony is not present in every single scene of the show doesn't alter the implied significance of the cut to black.
I loved it. The whole episode was subtle. no stupid gangster ending. I mean, did we really want the film to end with gunshots and a dead body?
the whole episode showed the soprano family being sucked away from an exciting, italian gangster life to a dull, typical, middle class American life.
Except that if Tony's not dead, why the suddenly black screen? What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Why does it have to mean anything? It means the show is over. What more needs to be meant?
Dave: Believe me, I didn't forget that incredibly heavy-handed flashback. But it makes absolutely no narrative or formal sense for Tony to die at that moment, except that it's the last scene of the TV show.
Al,
"And the unusualness that there was no music playing over the credits..."
You got the Journey song during the last scene, and the lack of music over the credits was so they could fade to black and stop the series right after a "don't stop".
As for Lost in Translation: what an over-rated movie. Not unpleasant, by any means, but Jesus -- a best screenplay Oscar for Sophia? What's the Academy going to do next, retroactively award her a best supporting actress Oscar for Godfather III? If I want a travelogue of Japan where they locals are caricatured, I'll watch Black Rain again.
I can't believe nobody has mentioned the choice of song and the Tony Bennett fake-out, or the obvious Godfather reference with the guy going into the bathroom. I think the ending was as good as can be expected - Tony actually getting wacked onscreen would have been trite and stupid. Instead (1) shit goes on pretty much as it has been - there's a victory (Phil) but hanging over it is an impending shitstorm (Tony's indictment) and (2) a violent death could be just seconds away (the italian guy and the black guys), or it could be nothing.
Phil's underlings agreed to let him be hit, so there's no retaliation coming from that direction.
Um, why not? I don't think the former implies the latter.
was no one else struck by paulie's expression after his two convos with tony? he seemed guilt stricken. tho i didn't really get it on my first viewing, i buy that tony was whacked. and really the only guy left is Paulie.
I thought the significance of the abrupt black screen was just that there was a lack of resolution. A fadeout would have left me leaning toward believing Tony didn't get wacked or arrested that night, where the sudden end leaves me up in the air about everything.
Chase has shown us all he wanted to, and I can only imagine that he wanted us to judge the story not on the outcome but on insights picked up along the way.
I admit, it left me a bit empty, which kind of typifies my experience with the show since the first season.
Um, why not? I don't think the former implies the latter.
What was the point of showing the meeting and agreement, then?
It's the viewer who gets whacked. Our viewing ends suddenly and prematurely, and we didn't see or hear it coming.
To explain how Tony accomplished offing Phil?
No, Tony didn't get anything from that meeting that helped him get Phil. Phil's underlings sold him out by saying they wouldn't continue the war, but wouldn't tell where he was. He got that information from the FBI agent. Tony would have had to have Phil killed regardless of what happened at that meeting; all that happened there of importance was that he got a promise of (relative) safety.
"I thought the ending was Chase's way of saying "FU, let me show how easy it is to build tension, but any doofus can do that, I wont; give you the satisfaction"
Yes.
It's also Chase's way of saying Fuck You to all the folks who watch the show for "who's gonna get whacked?" reasons.
Which means I loved it.
First time I've ever appreciated Journey.
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BTW, y'all who didn't appreciate the episode are utterly irredeemable.
Best episode of the show's run. Basically perfect in all ways, both as an hour, and as a payoff for the show.
Chase is officially god.
Our DVR was acting up all night and glitching for a few seconds, so at first we thought we just missed the ending. It was pretty hilarious in retrospect.
Anyway, people are arguing over whether Tony was killed, which is pretty obviously the point. In any normal story, the main character isn't likely to just die randomly, and 99% of the time you should be able to figure out from the lead up whether he was going to die (or likely to at least). A story where they can just say "hey, maybe this minute he died, maybe he didn't" without any lead up is pretty damn weird.
I also think any good story should KNOW where the ending will be when they start, and if Chase only wrote the ending a couple months ago, fie on him. If we believe he was always working towards this ending, then we should use previous evidence to see what he was aiming at. I'd say: Tony's death.
I'm not aware of any piece of art that, more than The Sopranos, is taken by much of its audience to be a different work than the one its creator intends. I'm not saying Matt's in the "wackin' and fuckin'" school of Sopranos appreciation, but back before the first half of season 6 started airing I declared that I thought the show would end in the way several of the seasons ended (in particular I have in mind season 2) - all this crazy shit happens and then...life goes on, pretty much the same as it ever was. Things get incrementally worse and incrementally worse, but they keep going. Does Tony die in the next frame we didn't get to see? While Chase can't help but know tons of people are going to care about that (and for the record, while I'm sympathetic to a lot of Chase's attitudes about this show and his drive to play with the audience's desires, there were moments during the show's run where I thought he passed into something like didactic contempt for his audience, which was a place I couldn't follow) I get the sense he doesn't. Someone at LGM commented something like "that was all we're allowed to see," and that's fine with me. What in the history of this show resolved, microcosmically, in such a way that you thought the macrocosm would wrap up in a shiny bow, whether of redemption or punishment or whatever? There's a difference between Chase failing to make art of the sort you want to see and Chase failing to make art of the sort he tried to make.
Of course, after season 1 my favorite year was season 5, so I'm probably not the median Sopranos viewer.
Even if Tony survives his onion rings, it's not like it's happily ever after.
He has a 90 percent chance of ending up in a federal lockup, and Carlo's high status means he'd have lots of goodies for the feds. When you add that to the events of the past four episodes or so, it's safe to say Tony's downfall is complete.
I think Tony lives, because the dramatic emphasis in that moment of action was on Meadow, not on the guy in the bathroom or the man who walked in with A.J.
Season 7 was all about Tony's world crumbling around him. His protege failed him for the last time, his therapy was kaput, his son was failing to make the moral compromises Tony's world relies on--and was paying for it with his sanity, and Meadow was on her way to becoming the next Carmela Soprano.
Given all that, the final episode was oddly optimistic, at least on the surface. It's now looking like Meadow isn't headed into the world of housewifedom, but where exactly is she headed? A life as a high-priced mafia lawyer, defending crooked councilmen and her dad?
That is, I guess, the ultimate tragedy--Tony had justified his actions on the idea that his children, especially his daughter, would go on to a better life. Meadow is certainly on her way to riches, but it will come from the same pot as Tony's--and that's what has him so upset.
"there were moments during the show's run where I thought he passed into something like didactic contempt for his audience"
That's when the show got really good.
And the same word occurred to me as well. One of my first thoughts after the blackout was that I wanted to watch Le Mepris again.
"didactic contempt" is about right.
The show was just a soap opera with murder. Lots of cliffhangers, plots that go on forever, etc. (On the plus side it was shot like Miller's Crossing). The show was a giant wank from the get-go. The ending was perfectly suited to it.
Question:
Was the guy at the diner in the trucker cap David Scantino/Robert Patrick (sporting goods store owner and victim of a bust-out in season 2)?
And do we know who the bathroom going guy was?
I think the ending showed that even when Tony's on top, he's not. His curse was to come out on top and, thus, remain in a business which requires constant over-the-shoulder glances.
I've never been a big fan of the Sopranos, so I'm not as invested in this as a lot of other people are. But it really seems to me that David Chase, the last few seasons, has suffered from the same problem Radiohead suffers from. Which is that, when you've reached such an absurd level of praise-- when people are falling all over themselves to find new hyperbole to heap on-- what's to prevent you from embracing your most self-indulgent impulses? Why work to accomplish something great, when you'll be considered great no matter what? The old line with Radiohead is that they could record the sound of themselves farting into a paper bag and their fans would call it genius. I feel like it's the same thing here. When people become so invested in calling something a work of genius... I mean if you read that Slate dialog, I don't think you can say that those people are actually engaging their critical faculties.
Freddie,
Radiohead's best album was The Bends. Downhill from there, perhaps partly because they started believing the hype about how they were reinventing rock 'n' roll. Whatevers.
Those of you thinking the trucker guy who went to the bathroom was going to kill Tony: why would he go to the bathroom first? In The Godfather, Michael had to go to the bathroom to get a hidden pistol, because he had been searched for a weapon before he got to the restaurant. No one searched the trucker guy at the restaurant. If he were going to kill Tony, he could have just shot him as he walked by the table (with plenty of witnesses in a well-lighted diner). The most reasonable interpretation is that Tony didn't get wacked in the last scene.
"But it really seems to me that David Chase, the last few seasons, has suffered from the same problem Radiohead suffers from."
The only difference being that Chase is really good and Radiohead sucks donkey balls.
"what's to prevent you from embracing your most self-indulgent impulses?"
What marks a truly remarkable artist is not that they avoid their most self-indulgent impulses, but instead that their most self-indulgent impulses create good art.
Rather than Radiohead, look at George Clinton. Most of his career consists of embracing his most self-indulgent instincts. And he's a god because that stuff ends up as kickass music.
"The most reasonable interpretation is that Tony didn't get wacked in the last scene."
I would rephrase this slightly:
If you think Tony did get whacked in the last scene, or even if you think it's ambiguous in some way, you're kinda stupid.
I think Tony lives, because the dramatic emphasis in that moment of action was on Meadow, not on the guy in the bathroom or the man who walked in with A.J.
Yes, but in the preceding shots, Meadow had been outside the dinner, the shot we saw of her at the door was the first one inside the diner looking out, roughly from Tony's position. IF the Tony-gets-whacked theory is correct, then that last shot of Meadow is probably the last thing he ever sees.
Petey, that's outrageous. The scene built up a lot of tension and ended abruptly before it was resolved. Of course it was ambiguous.
"Petey, that's outrageous."
Kinda stupid people always find it outrageous when their condition is pointed out to them.
Care to enlighten us on your brilliant thought process? I assume you worked backwards from "John Edwards will be the next president" to "Tony didn't get whacked" somehow...
Fred,
Two separate guys (guy in trucker hat who I think is the liquid metal Terminator/Davey Scantino) and the other is Bathroom-Using Man who wore no cap.
Petey,
I don't want to be stupid so I'll go on record saying, "not whacked". But I think the final scene is supposed to show Tony in a hyper-vigilant state, unable to enjoy his diner experience (hate to see what kind of pies Keri Russell would whip up for him) or any other experience because practically everyone looks suspicious in his eyes. Which is why it's good for my take on things that I couldn't get a clear look at Robert Patrick (if, indeed, that was him). Because the confusion and paranoia and the nagging fear is something I was glad to see Tony resigned to in the end.
The ending was all about tension vs plot content. Tony's and his family's life did not change throughout the series and I believe that that's the point. They continue to exist in the center of a maelstrom, blind to it except in a visceral, reactive way and therefore unable to truly change. They just keep on doing what they do. I loved the ending. Endings are quite difficult. I think time will show that this was a brilliant (especially for TV) close.
"Care to enlighten us on your brilliant thought process?"
Sure. It's the same thought process that allows me to discount theories that the World Trade Towers were destroyed by a controlled implosion - stupid theories should be discarded.
Petey should just go all the way and claim that it is OBVIOUS that Tony didn't get killed and that Chase is as brilliant in doing the Sopranos as Isaiah is as a GM.
An ambiguous inconclusive ending isn't one of the possibilities. The ending is that there's ambiguity.
I think that the thematic tone of the episode suggests the "Tony doesn't get whacked" view, the show ending with no one having grown, everyone a little older, losing but not learning. Here's the pattern: everyone has gotten a sign (from God?) and a chance to turn away from their slow path to nothingness (see Junior, with Paulie not far behind), and none have hearkened.
Tony: The gunshot from Junior and near-death experience
AJ: The SUV explosion; Bob Dylan
Paulie: The Virgin Mary (?!)
Carmela: too many to list
Meadow: see above
Bobby: the horror of killing the Canadien
Silvio: seeing the signs early on of New York moving and people turning from Tony
OK, I'm reaching here a bit, and obviously there is so much more going on with the show, but I think this is all in line with Chase's (uncharacteristically heavy-handed, IMO) message in the episode, of which AJ is both mouthpiece and embodiment. He spells out the Family's (and America's) condition: surrounded by death that shows forth the emptiness of its pursuits, it continues to delude itself and stick to its old ways, unheeding.
So whatever happened to the Russian in the Pine Barrens?
So whatever happened to the Russian in the Pine Barrens?
Once the submarine got off the sandbar, the young sailor defected and married Carl Reiner's daughter.
Way late with this, but I just saw this over at Bob Harris' blog.
http://www.bobharris.com/content/view/1406/1/
Comments closed June 24, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
So, even though there are rebroadcasts and on-demand, you watched Sopranos over the NBA Finals?
Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | June 11, 2007 12:06 AM