12 comments

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  Chuck Tryon

  2 years ago

  I loved the ending and while I would enjoy a feature film, I don't think it's necessary. James Gandolfini seems like he's done with the character, but if HBO made him an offer he couldn't refuse, a movie could happen (of course).
  
  What's great about the finale is the flat refusal of closure, the fact that Tony's self-created nightmare of constantly looking over his shoulder doesn't end.
  
  I've watched the series inconsistently, but followed this last season enthusiastically (it's the first time I've had HBO during a new season of the show).
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  bruce

  2 years ago

  Initially I thought that Chase had left the whole matter of whether Tony survives ambiguous. Now, after a half a day of thinking about, and a little bit of reading some of the blog theories, I believe it is actually less ambiguous than we all thought at first blush -- and more artful.
  
  The keys to the thing are Bobby Bacala's comment in the first episode of the second half of the 6th season, "when it happens, you don't even hear it."
  
  The final scene was mostly shot from Tony's perspective. Tony was watching the door. When the scene went black, that was Tony's viewpoint.
  
  Remember, it went black for a considerable period of time (5 seconds or more, possibly: an eternity on TV).
  
  Alessandra Stanley wrote a horrible review in the Times... she didn't get it at all. She said:
  
  But Mr. Chase’s last joke was on his audience, not his characters. Tony, Carmela and A. J. are gathered at a diner in a rare moment of family content that cried out for violent interruption. A shifty-looking man walks in and eyes them from the counter, then, in a move echoing a scene from “The Godfather,” ominously enters the men’s room. Outside, Meadow is delayed, trying to parallel park, then begins walking toward the restaurant.
  
  Nothing happens. Credits. What?
  
  She left out the key item: the black screen!!
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  Old Jack

  2 years ago

  I watched with a small group, also didn't follow the series religiously, but found the concluding episode artfully done -- I was reminded of Terry Southern in "The Magic Christian" having Guy Grand take a film and add bits of red-herring scenes (as I recall, for example, a couple are talking in a kitchen -- this is changed to a couple talking in a kitchen, close up of a big knife on a butcher block, then back to the couple talking -- the audience is so programmed to respond to foreshadowing that during intermission they're confused [which Guy underscores by mixing with the crowd and asking in a loud voice "what was that with the knife?!"). ANYWAY, I thought this episode was full of such foreshadowing, and was very, very funny -- and then at the end sent the family (and the Family) out into the world unresolved, as in real life (and into Tony's self-created nightmare, as Chuck mentioned).
  
  One person in the group watching the thing got so angry he shouted at the teevee, however, so it wasn't hilarity all around, by the way.
  
  Thanks for the review --
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  Tony Alva

  2 years ago

  “when it happens, you don’t even hear it.”
  
  Chase even gives us that line a second time as Tony recalls the discussion later after Bobby's death. I think that nails it to me. Tony did get whacked. It was a great ending.
  
  I would also go on record as saying that the "Six Feet Under" series finale was perhaps the greatest ending ever. My wife and I had tears streaming down our faces as we watched them all live their lives and die unremarkably for the most part. It was very sad as death always is. It also showed some characters getting on with their lives and overcoming what was tough hardships during the shows run, just as one might think they would. The exception being Keith being killed later in life in a armored car robbery. It was the anti-happy ending: yes, they all got on with their lives, but then they died.
  
  Brenda dying while her old man brother Billy is rambling on about his latest and endless tail of woe was most excellent comic relief.
  
  Bottom line is that HBO will have kick it up a notch to match the quality of these two shows. If it weren't for Six Feet, The Sopranos, Entourage, Big Love, etc... I'd never turn the damn thing on.
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  Tom K.

  2 years ago

  I'm with you on the "Godfather" reference implicit in the stranger's bathroom trip.
  
  But, if your reading is right, shouldnt' we have had Tony's point of view at the moment the screen went black?
  
  As I recall, the last shot was of his face, which obviously is not his POV. Or am I remembering it wrong?
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  Dennis Perrin

  2 years ago

  It's clear that Chase left the ending open to interpretation, which is probably the only way he could have closed the show. But I doubt that Tony got whacked. If so, by who? Phil was killed, and his former crew sided with Tony. The Feds? If so, why?
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• 

  blue girl

  2 years ago

  To me, this was the best Last Show I’ve seen.
  
  I agree. Boy, I loved it. Everyone can analyze it and judge it till the cows come home, but I thought it was pretty darn good.
  
  ...James Gandolfini and Edie Falco are perhaps the best leads I’ve ever seen in a series...
  
  Yes Siree, Joe. They were great.
  
  In the spirit of the show...
  
  I'm gonna F******* miss this F****** show.
  
  Darnit!
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  Lance Mannion

  2 years ago

  Barney Miller ended well. But they took the whole season to build to it.
  
  Cheers had a great finale. Unfortunately, it came a year before the show went off the air---Woody and Kelly's wedding. I believe that was intended to be the end but they talked Ted Danson into coming back for one more season and that was too bad because the last season was a waste and even a travesty of the show as the writers and the actors seemed to have turned on the characters.
  
  I hope they don't do a Sopranos movie. It's done, Tony's dead, whether or not he was killed, and besides, practically none of the great supporting cast of mobsters is left. The movie would have to give Tony a whole new crew and if Chase was going to do that he might as well just start a whole new series.
  
  Good post, Mr Perrin.
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  Lance Mannion

  2 years ago

  Oh, and Seinfeld had a pretty good last show, except that it was the second to the last show. The Puerto Rican Day Parade show summed up the characters and the whole series and having the four of them walking away from Jerry's upended car to go to Monks and eat and talk as if nothing had happened would have been just the right way to end. But, no, they had to go out BIG.
  
  Chase did it right.
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  Tom K.

  2 years ago

  If they do a Soprano's movie - which I'm utterly indifferent about - they should do it as a prequel (ala portions of GF II). Maybe even go back far enough so they can cast different actors for whatever familiar characters appear.
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  Frank Weaver

  2 years ago

  I always appreciate your blog Dennis, so great to read you here now. As I'm already commenting on Soprano finales posts in this blog, I just wanted to add that in keeping with the techno-reality-ending factor, your youtube post of the ending was terminated as well. Fitting.
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  Gerald Howard

  2 years ago

  " . . . there was no real or satisfying way to end The Sopranos" ??? Excuse me? That's like whatever contractor is doing the roadwork saying "There is no real of satisfying way to finish renovating the Gowanus Expressway." That is what writers are PAID FOR. That is their ARTISIC RESPONSIBILITY. Closure and catharsis are built in expectations of Western dramatic culture, and for David Chase to deny his audience those essentials was, as New York magazine accurately points out, an act of sadism. But then, this is the man who created Livia Soprano, so there is no surprise that the guy feels his audience's love as a burden to be scorned rather that a gift to be cherished. Poor you, said in the Nancy Marchand Manner.
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