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June 10, 2007
Sopranos Finale
Wow was that bad. Almost impressively so. Ben Adler turned to me at the end and defended it. "They couldn't kill Tony," he said. "That would've been trite." Well, it would have been expected, at least. An interesting trick Chase and the writers pulled. Because we all assumed this was a good show, and they wouldn't do the actually trite thing and kill off the hero's enemies and put his family on stable footing, we began expecting that Tony would die, and the final episode would be fraught and tough. By going and doing the actually trite thing and making the last episode like a hyper-violent finale to a warm-hearted sitcom, the show managed to be surprising to its fans. But the cost was that it was bad. And no, the uncertainty of the final shot doesn't change that. That sense of continuity may have been the right close for the series, but coming atop this episode, it felt like a cop-out.
June 10, 2007 | Permalink
Comments
Makes me feel even more smug self-satisfaction for never watching the show.
I'll bet the ending to Lost will suck, too.
Posted by: PapaJijo | Jun 10, 2007 10:37:39 PM
The producers of "John from Cincinnati" are pissed right now.
What the hell was that?
Posted by: Antid Oto | Jun 10, 2007 10:40:44 PM
Yeah, that was really trite when that car ran over Phil Leotardo's head with infant twins inside. And the existential moment when Tony found his once-powerful uncle utterly abandoned and empty-headed in a state-run mental institute was positively saccharine.
I don't think the show is beyond criticism, but I don't think this was a Hallmark ending.
Posted by: Philly | Jun 10, 2007 10:42:04 PM
But it was! Tony's great enemy dies in a particularly horrific way. Like in every action movie ever made. Tony finds a certain forgiveness for his uncle after seeing his slow deterioration. It may not have been saccharine in the normal sense. But for the Sopranos? Definitely.
Posted by: Ezra | Jun 10, 2007 10:51:12 PM
I think you're wrong. I think too many people expected a gangster movie. And that's never what The Sopranos was. It was way more Middle Class than that. And the ending fit just that. Tony could die in the next frame. He could get arrested. But we'll never know - and that was never the point; because that tension, that risk, existed all along. What the ending reminded us was that in a diner with a cross section of America, The Sopranos are not so different from everyone else. And we should all keep that in mind. I kind of like that.
Posted by: weboy | Jun 10, 2007 10:52:49 PM
Is it possible Tony actually did get clipped? Or am I reading too much into the abrupt ending and silence?
Posted by: Tom | Jun 10, 2007 10:54:17 PM
The lack of sound or music as the credits roll makes me think that Tony got whacked, as the show's music has always been something of an indicator of Tony's stream of consciousness. But we'll never know..
Posted by: Kolby | Jun 10, 2007 11:02:24 PM
The episode where Christopher gets killed is named for the girls who almost hit him, Heidi and Kennedy. The episode where Bobby gets killed is named for the train set he's looking at, the Blue Comet. The episode where Tony gets killed "The American Dream," is named for the guy in the USA trucker hat.
Posted by: Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy | Jun 10, 2007 11:13:17 PM
I think the ending is more satisfying if we assume he got whacked. Remember, just last episode, he had that voiceover flashback of Bobby saying "you never hear the one that gets you."
On the other hand, if he's not dead, what does the series say?
1) Crime can, sometimes, pay. There is no moral justice in this world.
2) None of it means anything, no one changes, it isn't GOING anywhere.
3) The audience can go fuck themselves.
Posted by: Anthony Damiani | Jun 10, 2007 11:13:36 PM
It didn't end. That's the point.
Posted by: Scott | Jun 10, 2007 11:14:00 PM
"It didn't end. That's the point."
Clearly, but that doesn't make it good or satisfying.
Posted by: Anthony Damiani | Jun 10, 2007 11:15:39 PM
It doesn't make it satisfying. Doesn't necessarily mean it's not good.
Posted by: weboy | Jun 10, 2007 11:17:02 PM
But according to hbo.com, the name of the final episode isn't "The American Dream," it's "Made in America."
Posted by: Patrick Nielsen Hayden | Jun 10, 2007 11:20:51 PM
When Tony asked Bobby what it was like, he said "I guess it just goes black". They flashed back to the scene in the boat in the 2nd last episode. Tony is dead and it just went black. It's that simple.
Posted by: Jared | Jun 10, 2007 11:20:54 PM
Whacked or not, I think the end episode does say what Damiani at 11:13 in 1,2,3 says.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jun 10, 2007 11:49:27 PM
The hell with that! I think it was an absolutely brilliant episode that I was certain the moment the credits rolled that almost everyone will hate because everyone is hung up with "how will it end". And that is quintessential Sopranos. It has always been about the end - the "whack" literally and metaphorically (as in, we all get whacked in the end). But hey, maybe we'd be having a different discussion if we saw the Soprano family gunned down, blood and brains flying everywhere! Yeah. That would have made more sense...never mind.
Posted by: Al Z | Jun 11, 2007 12:10:54 AM
Yes, a total cop out. A failure of imagination. I can think of a number of good ways to have ratcheted up the pressure on the family, not necessarily killing off Tony. After all the head of the family doesn't often get whacked -- but at least he has to do a perp walk. I found it very unsatisfying. Seemed like a writer who couldn't let his creation move through the logical consequences. And I feel manipulated. Sorry I bothered to watch. However, if the blacked-out screen represents Tony's getting it--okay!
Posted by: Judy | Jun 11, 2007 12:32:37 AM
Best possible ending. Were you watching the same show?
All I should have to say is 'Journey', but cross that with Meadow parking and checking to see you comes through the door. I thought it was one of the best scenes of the entire show - second only to Leotardo explaining why their name had been changed from Leonardo.
Posted by: theCoach | Jun 11, 2007 12:45:40 AM
When Tony asked Bobby what it was like, he said "I guess it just goes black". They flashed back to the scene in the boat in the 2nd last episode. Tony is dead and it just went black. It's that simple.
I can't really buy that. The show has violated third-person-limited too frequently for me to believe that when Tony dies, the lights go out. For god's sake, we did how many episodes with him in a coma?
Posted by: Antid Oto | Jun 11, 2007 12:50:51 AM
i think he definitely got whacked, tho my initial inclination was that they were just doing the sopranos thing and making fun of TV shows that just end at an arbitrary point in the characters lives.
the bobby flashback convo combined with the guy going into the bathroom Michael Corleone style combined with Paulie's TWO pained looks after speaking to Tony. I think Paulie turned on Tony and was in cahoots with Phil's No. 2.
And Ezra, I don't speak for anyone else, but I find your tone to be quite annoying. David Chase spent years creating probably the best show in the history of TV, and just cause he chose not to end his masterpiece the way you particularly wanted, it gets some kind of obnoxious sarcasm? Everyone's a fucking critic. Have a little respect for the fact that he can end this is HIS ART. your simplistic value judgments of an artistic decision are so goddamn obnoxious.
Posted by: b. schac | Jun 11, 2007 1:26:01 AM
More than anything, Chase took the medium of TV and utilized its strengths throughout the show. It was constantly meandering (like life), without a set end point (like life), and often there is nothing satisfying about it (yes, like life). There are many Sopranos episodes where satisfaction is the last thing on my mind, but I'm in awe of its brilliance. That was tonight.
I spent the past 8 episodes growing to hate Tony. Truly despise him. Which is what Chase wanted. The anti-hero became villain. And yet, at the end of tonight's episode, I was happy Tony was alive and the family was happy. The uncertainty overhanging, getting whacked, going to jail, living unhappily ever after is exactly what a TV show should be.
More than anything, has anybody ever thought the last episode of a TV show was good? Do they ever ask themselves why? Everybody hated the last Seinfeld, which I thought was quite good as well. In both Seinfeld and in tonight's Sopranos the creators (Chase and David) stayed true to their shows spirits. How could one end the Sopranos? I kept watching and at 9:45 I thought "this episode just seems normal" and that's when I decided I loved it.
Posted by: JW | Jun 11, 2007 1:56:23 AM
I find it interesting that a couple of people on this thread are assuming that Tony got whacked. But the whole fucking point of the ending, it seemed to me, is that we don't know. If Chase and his writers wanted to kill Tony off, they would have done so. The episode ended on a deeply indeterminate note and we as an audience are, I think, meant to accept that -- even though some of us will definitely not be happy with it.
And Ezra, c'mon -- whatever you may think of the final episode overall (and I'm still not sure how I feel about it), it was far from trite or saccharine. On the contrary, it was quite dark. Meadow, who once seemed so promising, has abandoned the healing career as a doctor she'd had her heart set on and seems well on her way to becoming a mob lawyer (after all, she's literally marrying into the mob). A.J., after going through a depression that seemed like it might deepen him in some way, or cause him to grow as a person, ends up taking a job that his parents have arranged for him at an especially sleazy firm in the entertainment biz -- the very same industry he'd denounced as shallow and materialistic earlier in the episode. Bobby Bacala's kids are suffering the fate-worse-than-death of life with the egregious Janice, whose mothering skills are about on a par with Livia's, if that. Junior is so out of it that he doesn't even recognize Tony or Janice anymore.
And as for Tony, he's clearly on a downward spiral. Taking out Phil was at best a hollow victory. Over the course of the season, he's lost most of the people (Christopher, Sil, Bobby B., Melfi) whom he depended on the most. He's given the top job in the organization to Paulie, who doesn't want it and clearly does not seem capable of it. His kids have greatly disappointed him. He's told by his lawyer he has a 90% chance of being indicted. And, as the final scene demonstrates, he has to live with the constant fear that anywhere, at any time, someone might kill him. Man, does it suck to be him. Call the ending what you will -- personally I think the writers were trying to do something original that didn't quite work. But trite it was not.
Posted by: vulture | Jun 11, 2007 2:00:07 AM
Ya got no taste, Ezra.
Posted by: Petey | Jun 11, 2007 2:03:47 AM
Stick to writing about subjects you know something about, Ezra. You sound like a Philistine whenever you write anything about culture.
Posted by: zimzo | Jun 11, 2007 2:10:28 AM
1) Crime can, sometimes, pay. There is no moral justice in this world.
I think this is probably a good starting point. If the Sopranos were a tragedy, Tony, like Agamemnon, would have eventually been undone, and his hubris--in believing he could control his destiny through strength and violence and avoid retribution for his sins--thoroughly discredited. If it were a redemptive morality play, it would have ended with him somehow breaking free of the cycle of retributive violence. It has long been a theme of the show that redemption of this kind isn't possible, nor are there any Fates out there to ensure that cosmic justice is done and hubris punished. Instead, we are left with the possibility that one can, to some extent, control one's fate through violence, and the more subtle moral critique that such a life may not be worth it.
Posted by: Greg | Jun 11, 2007 2:24:09 AM
