newcritics - Latest Comments in The Sense of an Ending

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Chuck — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:55:47 -0000

Hi Mike. As my comments hopefully suggest, I'm basically in agreement with you on this point. In fact, I genuinely loved the ending.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Mike Roberts — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 13:52:55 -0000

I think the ending was as close to invoking the spirit of "in media res" as it should have been. Most series start at a given point in the characters' lives, and move forward from there, with little narrative sidetrips into providing backstory (or not), so I think that's entirely justifiable to end a series in the middle of their story. Chase doesn't need to tie everything up for us, as life seldom does..I think Chase did the right thing by not trying to force an ending where there wouldn't be one, were Tony et al actual people.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Tony Alva — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 20:24:58 -0000

All good stuff, but I osdon't think we'll ever see anymore Sopranos episodes or movies. I don't think future revenue was the motive for his ending.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Tom Watson — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:39:05 -0000

I think the shot came from the grassy knoll...

Seriously, if Chase wanted to cap Tony as the ending, he would have. Now he gets the best of both worlds: fans obsessing whilst they build a market for a huge movie gross. He can make his choice when he wants to.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Chuck Tryon — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:10:59 -0000

Tom K, you're correct about the angle during Phil's assassination and about the relative angle between Tony and the bathroom.

I'm still safely in the "Tony lives" camp, but that visual parallel is worth noting (as is the Godfather allusion). I think that the main reason I'm skeptical about there being a hit involved is that the feud with New York is supposedly over because Tony brokered a deal with Phil's underlings, at least as I understand that scene.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Tom K. — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:04:28 -0000

*Another colleague doubts it was a Mafia hit (besides the fact of who wanted him dead) because a mob hit is from the front, so you see who is killing you.*

I think the point of view when the screen goes dark makes the "hit" scenario unlikely, but I would note that, if I recall the scene correctly, Phil L was taken out from the side, not the front, at roughly the angle the bathroom presented for the final scene.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Chuck Tryon — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:52:23 -0000

M.A., I like the comparison with Everybody Loves Raymond. After all, in what follows, he generally engages in friendly banter with Carm and A.J. (while they wait for Meadow to parallel park). The scene brings things back to the domestic dramedy that dominated many of the early episodes (and, oddly, while watching this scene, I kept thinking about all of the times that Tony cheated on Carm during this scene and how all of that seemed to be forgotten, at least briefly). But Tony as lovable lug dad is essentially the last image we see.

The fast cutting worked against the sense of relaxation that you describe (at least for me). The quick cuts and furtive glances, underscored by the crescendoing Journey song, prevented me from fully relaxing. But I think that either reading (Tony dies or Tony lives) can still feed the main thematic point that I take from the scene: that everything Tony has accumulated and achieved, including the (temporary) family harmony is tenuous and contingent, that it could be taken away at any moment.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

M.A.Peel — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:36:12 -0000

Can I evolve my own opinion? I was talking with a colleague, and saying that the change in tone bewteen Tony entering the diner in his leather jacket, and the Tony sitting in his golf shirt at the table, is so strong, maybe something else is going on.

I noted that Tony is smiling and relaxed. But it's more than that. He seems like the mild-mannered Ray from Everybody Loves Raymond. Is that who Tony really thinks he is? Is that whole scene in his head?

Another colleague doubts it was a Mafia hit (besides the fact of who wanted him dead) because a mob hit is from the front, so you see who is killing you.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Chuck Tryon — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:55:00 -0000

Intention is definitely complicated business. I don't think that Chase intends the contempt you describe, but you're right that it could be manifested textually in the way that the final season was put together.

Another thing to take away from the interview is that Chase was operating within the constraints presented by HBO in terms of how many episodes he was asked to produce and how that informed certain storylines.

Again, I'm not that eager to defend him, but I am interested in how this perception of Chase gained such traction.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Tom K. — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:47:14 -0000

I know I'm far from the only one to raise the "contempt for the fans" issue, but I would like to clarify what I meant by it.

I didn't mean that there is a subjective contempt, in the sense of "I'm gonna jerk these folks around." Rather, as in the analogy to the rock star, it's more like, "I'm gonna do what I want", with the unstated and perhaps unconscious subtheme being, "without regard to what they want, 'cause I'm not here to entertain *them*".

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Chuck Tryon — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:14:12 -0000

M.A. Peel mentioned the Alan Sepinwall interview with Chase, but I just wanted to add it here as well, because I think it reinforces my point that Chase isn't contemptuous of his audience at all, as he explains in the interview.

In fact, like M.A., I think Chase is showing tremendous faith in his audience by offering two of the more memorable final scenes in recent TV history (see her entry on this). Sorry to belabor this a bit, but I do think the final scenes offer closure even while keeping Tony alive ("the movie goes on and on...").

Re: The Sense of an Ending

wow powerleveling — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:54:52 -0000

Hi Chuck
I'm not clear how the assessment works?could u plz leave more details?
i'll appreciate if so

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Tom K. — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:39:58 -0000

Maybe he just wanted to pay tribute to the "Godfather" saga by ending with a really lousy product.

But no, I'll stick with my view that the roots of this can be found much earlier, in the "now that I've got your attention, wait around a few years till I feel like giving you a few more episodes" attitude.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Tom Watson — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:10:16 -0000

Yeah, as she says:

Chase really does have the last laugh, here, making us pick apart lyrics to a Journey song, for Christsakes.

Indeed! The episode was the big middle finger...

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Claire — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:51:51 -0000

Tom K, Salon has a write-up of the Sopranos finale and Heather Havrilesky thinks that the ending might have been a big f-you to watchers as well.

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2007/06/11/sop...

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Chuck Tryon — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:35:28 -0000

Tom K, I think I experienced the extended hiatus differently because I watched the show primarily on DVD, and I have to wonder whether DVD and other factors might not be changing the lives of shows. In a sense, the show never completely dies because it is readily available on DVD--which is quite a bit different than waiting for episodes, often presented in random order, on syndication. But I imagine that series DVDs may change the lives of TV series in complicated ways.

I'm certainly willing to acknowledge that the show was made for the cash, but I can't really blame Chase, Gandolfini and others for that motivation. If the work sucks, I won't follow, but this past season continued to interest me, if not on a specific story level, in terms of how individual characters (A.J., Christopher) were explored.

I'm intrigued by your rock band analogy, Tom K, and while I don't feel the need to defend Chase's approach to the story's end, I do think that a number of common themes were revisited in new ways (especially when it came to the nuclear family). But I have a hard time believing that Chase could have "contempt" for his audience, given the amount of money he's made off of us over the years.

Tom W, the Cheers ending is one of my favorites, too.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Tom Watson — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:20:32 -0000

I agree with the Ã¢â‚¬Å“extended hiatus followed by directionless returnÃ¢â‚¬Â take on this year. It lost me.

I predicted in the comments on an earlier post that the series would purposely meander off and it did. Sadly, Ihave to disagree with the majority opinion here - I think Chase, Gandolfini and Co. were in full Roger Clemens mode - they pretended it was all about the art ("another ring"), but it was about the money.

Unlike Deadwood - which was a crime to kill.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Tom K. — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 16:11:33 -0000

For all the "life is like that" justifications for the failure to tie up story lines, I'd note that this most recent season didn't even have many interesting story lines to tie up.

The whole approach to the finale struck me as contemptuous of the audience. I mean that in a very speicific way: for example, like an old rocker playing only his new stuff. You can say he's giving his audience credit for being up to his newer, more complex material, or you can say he's being contemptuous of their desire to hear his hits. More often, I think it's the latter.

Once you've decided to subject your audience to the absurd sort of "extended hiatus followed by directionless return" that the Soporanos has been implementing over the last several years, a conclusion like this is, at least, internally logical.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Tom Watson — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:55:55 -0000

For my money, Cheers had the best ending of any modern television series (and I was a semi-fan, not aregular). "We're closed" was perfect ending - and the spin-off was a rip-snorter. That's the way to do it.

Suck-o endings:
Seinfeld
MASH
Twin Peaks (long over)
Crime Story (cliffhanger - cancelled over summer)

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Tony Alva — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 15:05:50 -0000

Chuck,

That was most excellent. I enjoyed this episode as much as any and am satisfied with the ending. That's the superlative I think best describes it: satisfying.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Chuck Tryon — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:58:05 -0000

Claire, I couldn't agree with you more about Gilmore Girls. I liked the final scenes of the last episode, but the last season of the show simply wasn't that strong.

Re: The Sense of an Ending

Claire — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:47:30 -0000

Hi Chuck, I agree with the assessment that fans always seem to want their favorite shows to go on forever and a day. I'm fans of all the shows (save the Sopranos b/c I don't get HBO) you mentioned, and was relieved about all of their endings. Gilmore should have ended two seasons ago, or at least when the Pallandinos left. Veronica was a bittersweet ending, so much right with that show but it didn't always measure up. And Battlestar I'm really relieved is ending. It truly feels like it will be a whole entity, not something being milked to death. I love that show, don't get me wrong, but having it end will seem right.