The Sopranos finale that was more Nada than Bada bing
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- June
- 11
Yeah, yeah, I get it, David Chase…you didn’t want to give us resolution. There are no conclusions in life, things don’t get tied up in neat little bows and yada, yada, yada Tony Soprano likes onion ringsâ€â€the end.
Obviously, people are talking about the cut-to-black finale that capped the sixth and final season of The Sopranos last night and for the most part fans fall into two categories: There are those who are massively disappointed in Chase and his non-conclusion conclusion. And there are those who are massively disappointed in the ending but nevertheless pretend they wouldn’t have wanted it to end any other way because a show that has always been about the uncertainty of Tony’s world should end on a note of uncertainty. (I don’t believe for a second a single person watching last night was truly satisfied at 10:05).
It’s one thing to end on an ambiguous note and make me tax my delicate little Sunday night brain to think about the ending without the accouterments of modern network television melodrama, but let’s call a spade a spadeâ€â€the ending was not some masterful genius stroke (from arguably our most masterful crafter of television drama), it was a cop out. You could almost see the various speculative climaxes spinning around the poor writer’s head (Tony taking a bullet to his temple, Meadow, A.J., Carm biting it, Tony heading into the witness protection program, and/or jail) and finally Mr. Chase just throwing his hands up in despair and saying, “Enough! I’m done!â€?
I have no problem ending the series without a definite conclusion, but couldn’t you at least conclude the scene?
My friend notes: “The ending was a reference to the first episode of this season- Bobby and Tony are fishing and Tony says “when it all ends, you never see it coming, it goes to black and silence…”
That is interesting, and of course, we’ll never know if that was the intended implication. In my mind, Tony didn’t die. He lives on…or at the very least finishes his dinner.
I’m a sucker for happy endings.
(AP Photo/HBO, Craig Blankenhorn)
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on Monday, June 11th, 2007 at 4:26 pm by Suburbarazzi.
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I don’t think we were supposed to feel satisfied. I thought it was brilliant and i assure you im not pretending.
He ended the show in his own abstract way which is how he has operated ever since the show started. You may not have been “satisfied” the way you thought you would be .. but are you going to deny that your heart was pounding in those final seconds?
Isn’t that his job to provide entertainment? Just because its not in the spoonfed way you’d like it to be .. it doesn’t mean that everyone has to feel that way.
As much as people are pissed today .. i dont think there is any other way Chase could have ended it that would leave people talking like they are today.
And at the end of the day .. it is his show and he has provided me with enough entertainment over the years that I’ll cut him a little slack on the unusual ending.
Unusual ending? Dude, There was no ending! Every other season had an ending. Tony eats dinner with his family in the comfort of Arties during a storm. End Season One. Tony smokes cigar, thinks about Big Pussy. End Season Two. The family has dinner after Jackie Jr’s funeral. Meadow gets pissed and runs away from her father. End Season Three. And so on and so forth. The Sopranos always ended as tidy as it could or it would set us up for the next season. Lets say you are reading a great novel. The climax is coming. Will our hero live or die? Will he get The Woman? No. Nothing happens. It just says THE END. Or you are watching a crucial basketball game. The Lakers are trying to come back in the final seconds. You got a lot riding on this game. 10 seconds to go and…the screen goes black. David Chase may be a genius for creating The Sopranos and crafting it his way but that cut to black was just a slap in the face of every fan who adored this show. I guess egotism comes with genius.