Sopranos finale, anyone?

[mere1975]

What'd ya think?

- Mere "didn't like the very end - why so sudden? do we think he got shot or did the restaurant blow up or something?? Or did it just cut to black?" 1975

[lennon]

overall, i thought the finale was more hype than substance. the final scene was very tense. i have heard rumors of a sopranos movie in the near future and the restaurant scene would be an excellent place to begin the movie.

[sam]

It could have ended lot's of ways, but I guess they are telling us that the end of the show isn't the end of story. That being said, I think the Soprano's movie rumor is probably more wishful thinking than anything else. Besides, it would only be a double or triple episode and they would have to really push the pacing to keep up with the expectations of non HBO watchers.

Phil Leotardo, though, wow.

[lennon]

the show is open to endless interpretation. one theory i have heard this morning is that tony was killed in the last scene. if you go back several episodes there was a bit of foreshadowing when tony and bobby were on the lake in the boat.

while talking bobby said something close to the following, 'you never hear the one that gets you' and 'when its your turn, it all goes black'.

the scene with the cat staring at christopers pic on the wall was quite interesting. one theory i have heard is that a 'bug' was implanted in the frame and that the cat could hear the high pitch frequency.

[Irock]

NOT LISTENING

[mere1975]

One thing I heard and thought about this morning. . .

If David Chase wanted us to feel the kind of pressure that someone like Tony would have for the rest of his life -- watching everyone enter the room, looking behind his back, wondering if his kids/wife/self will get popped -- that last scene did it. I just sat there with a knot in my stomach waiting for something to happen and then -- nothing.

Then someone on the radio said he read a theory that the family met at the restaurant to go into the witness protection program. I didn't see that. I think he was freaked out about what Carlo was telling the Feds, but they didn't indicate that they were going to "flip" themselves.

Some things they did were just frustrating, though. Why show Meadow parallel parking?

Loved the cat -- just because Pauly's reaction was so funny.

- Mere "Christafah" 1975

[lennon]

Some things they did were just frustrating, though. Why show Meadow parallel parking?

i thought it helped to build on the intensity of the scene.

one more thought...it has been said that everyone in the restaurant was from tonys past at some point in the show. and yes, many of them would have reason to want him dead.

[monet2u]

I didn't watch it as I don't have that channel. But I did read about it this afternoon, kinda felt like watching it I suppose.

Oh yeah DON'T read this if you're gonna watch it.

An ending that befits genius of 'Sopranos'
Tim Goodman

Monday, June 11, 2007

An ending that befits genius of 'Sopranos'
06/11/2007

No, your cable -- or satellite -- didn't go out. The ending of "The Sopranos" was both perfect and annoying as creator David Chase chose, once again, to upend the conventions of television by cutting (not fading) to black at an unpredictable, tension-filled moment.

Just like that, it was over.

No doubt millions of people around the country leapt to their feet, thinking that the worst possible technical glitch had occurred at the worst possible time. But this was no "gotcha" moment from Chase, who created and nurtured one of the greatest series in television history; it was a director's choice that was something close to perfect. He gave a gift to critics who wished that "The Sopranos" would just end, without melodrama or crisply tied-up storylines, but more like a camera shutting off. And it did.

That it was a pivotal scene, replete with a tense tease worthy of repeated viewings, will only ratchet up some people's annoyance. In an episode that opens like so many "Sopranos" episodes in this final season -- with Tony waking up in bed -- there is an ever-so-slight release of pressure at first. Tony Soprano, hiding out in a safe house after the New York family led by Phil Leotardo wages war on Tony's New Jersey family, wakes up alive. A lot of "Sopranos" fans thought an all-out assault on the safe house would kick off the episode, perhaps led by a tip from a rat in Tony's crew.

Wrong.

But just because Tony wakes up alive doesn't mean he'll survive. And the final "Sopranos" episode never has much in the way of taut, agitating moments. A peace is brokered with New York, Phil is killed (an ordinary whacking followed by a brutal scene where his head is crushed under a car tire), and all that is eventually left is the almost predictable news that the feds have flipped a member of Tony's crew and are typing up subpoenas at a furious pace.

Chase has always let Tony talk freely of what happens to mobsters -- most end up in jail, the others dead. Period. But that didn't stop fans from thinking up elaborate, often far-fetched endings.

Though Tony is fearful of what the feds have and what a member of his crew -- Carlo -- could supply them with, his attorney says flatly that trials are made to be won. So viewers are left with a major unanswered question -- does Tony go to jail or get off?

But that's nothing at all like the question all viewers had on their minds as they entered this last hour -- will Tony live or die? Jail? Who cares? This was a matter of life and death.

And that, precisely, is what Chase preyed on in the finale (which he wrote and directed). As Tony meets his family -- each one driving separately -- at a diner, there is an ominous sense of doom. Tony, alone at a booth, flips through the counter jukebox and selects, appropriately enough, Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." (Music and lyrics of the songs chosen by Chase have been an integral part of "The Sopranos," and this is no different.) But viewers, wary that something could still happen to Tony -- and no doubt moved to the edge of their seats by the dramatic score that precedes Journey -- have to bear witness to Tony looking up, vulnerable, every time the door to the diner slams open.

It is maddening. First, Carmela (though there is a glimpse of a woman who looks like Tony's sister Janice, and a large number of fans thought she'd be the one to off Tony), then later, son A.J. Except when A.J. arrives, he is slightly behind a man who looks for all the world like he is there to hit Tony. The man sits at the counter and periodically eyes Tony and his family. The tension rises -- highlighted by a beautifully choreographed scene where daughter Meadow arrives but has all kinds of trouble parallel-parking out front, which prolongs the scene. Is she going to walk in just as the guy at the counter kills her father or slaughters her family? Will Meadow be the one to survive?

Before she enters the diner -- still parking, in an excruciating but now somehow funny scene -- the man at the counter walks toward Tony and then ... passes. He heads to the bathroom. Next in the door -- another two characters who could be hired thugs. But no. Then, finally, the camera slows as Meadow marches across the street to the diner, and we see Tony looking down, the sound of the door pushed open is heard, he raises his head (apparently seeing Meadow), then touches the top of the counter jukebox just as Journey singer Steve Perry says, "Don't stop ..." -- and the screen goes shockingly to black, with no sound whatsoever.

The end.

It is like Tony hit the snooze button on an alarm clock. And in some way, he did. Our glimpse into the lives of the Soprano family ends in that instant. But the implication is that life for Tony Soprano goes on, and we'll all just have to guess at the end. Conviction or innocence? Mistrial? He gets hit by a bus or has a heart attack? Who knows? We'll never know. And it's better that way. If you're thinking there's a movie in the works, think again. It was supposed to end like this. Sunday night was not a cliff-hanger waiting for a movie.

The perfect element to the final scene -- other than scaring the bejesus out of most of the country and prompting calls to local cable companies -- is that we don't know what happens. There is no answer. But at the same time, Tony has his family around him -- and "The Sopranos" has always been a show about families.

Carmela is there, slightly agitated, slightly distant. You'd be hard-pressed to say there is anything different about her in that moment than any we've seen in the previous seasons. A.J. is there, having survived his SUV igniting a patch of leaves in the forest just as he was going to have sex (so perfectly random and perfectly A.J. as to need no more discussion). He had temporarily thought of joining the Army to fight the war on terror (a thematic backdrop to the recent "Sopranos" season) but was talked, or lured, out of it by his coddling parents, who set him up with a cush film job and the promise that they might front the money for him to open his own club. Again, perfectly A.J., perfectly Soprano family parenting.

Then Meadow arrives, the last of the brood, having finally and maddeningly parallel-parked the car. She appears headed to marriage with Patrick Parisi, son of one of Tony's crew, with a high-paying job in criminal law ahead of her. It's not the doctor job Tony had envisioned for her, but he's indirectly responsible for that, as Meadow told him over dinner that she wanted to defend minorities mistreated by the justice system: "If I hadn't seen you dragged away all those times by the FBI, then I'd probably be a boring suburban doctor."

And so, we get more or less what was expected, besides the oddly edited ending. Tony's family is around him. Life, such as it is for a mobster facing possible criminal indictment, goes on.

Chase manages, with this ending, to be true to reality (Tony's lawyer says earlier in the episode, "It's not like we haven't envisioned this day") while also steering clear of trite TV conventions. Tony isn't killed in a blaze of gunfire. Multiple plotlines are left unresolved (like life). There is no hugging, no moral lesson, no pat ending.

It just ends. Before a lot of people wanted it to, but with a clever Chase-like nod to the unknown.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

E-mail Tim Goodman at tgoodman@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

[ifihadahifi]

My stoompid DVR didn't record the last two episodes while I was out and CNN gave away the ending while I was sitting in the airport with nothing better to do.

So I've decided that CNN is geigh.

[sam]

I was trying to envision all kinds of subterfuge but my ideas basically came down to a Godfather/Godfather II ending, a Godfather III ending, or a Goodfellas ending. Now that it is in the books I am sure they, particularly Chase, decided early on they weren't going to go any of those directions.

[roach]

My stoompid DVR didn't record the last two episodes while I was out and CNN gave away the ending while I was sitting in the airport with nothing better to do.

So I've decided that CNN is geigh.

that's a logical conclusion from just watching 5 minutes of cnn.

ro"where you be?"ach?

[ifihadahifi]

ro"where you be?"ach?

I was in Canada eating moose meat, shooting muskrat and watching reruns of Corner Gas.

[lennon]

ok, one more hypothesis that i find quite intriging:

the screen goes to black because we the viewer, has been 'whacked'. the sopranos go on as a family and tony goes on as the head of the 'family' but since we the viewer are dead we are no longer able to act as a voyeur to watch their day to day lives.

[ifihadahifi]

Watched it this morning. Gah.

Ever see the movie "Limbo"?

[Rubbs]

It was an unconventional ending. But after setting with it for a few days...I really appreciate it. I just really didn't want it to end. The ways to look at the ending are many...what I don't think was that it was a cop out. I think, in fact, that the judgement is somewhat of a cop out. I am most closely aligned with the theory that the our viewing of the fictional family just stopped...almost giving abnormal respect to his creation (cool). The Sopranos are still out there...being who they are. The story is about family relationships...there is no end to that insanity. But like I said...there are many great interpretations out there.

I liked it. Even though it left me somewhat confused and frustrated.

Ironically my crazy as sister showed up at my house for a confrontation because i was avoiding her phone calls. I had to threaten to call the fuzz to get her to leave. I had to chuckle walking back into the house. There is no end. There is no peace when it comes to family.

Like running after a bus isn't it?