Andrew / June 13, 2007 1:09 AM

Question courtesy of Skafiend.

Dave! / June 13, 2007 7:22 AM

I still think it sucked.

Not as much as I first did, there was some nuance to it... did Tony get capped? Did we (the viewer) get capped? But still, that it took Chase and his team so long to work on this season, it was overall a really disappointing season, and a pretty weak ending.

Don't know what I would have done better, but I had an emotional reaction to the end and it wasn't good.

jennifer / June 13, 2007 9:09 AM

I really, really enjoyed the use of Journey.

annie / June 13, 2007 9:24 AM

I am happy Tony didn't get killed. I thought it was going to happen in front of the family and that would have really disturbed me. I was a wreck when Bobby got it in the train shop. I know these guys are murderes and sociopaths, but I love them, wish they were real and that I could hang out with them. And I know that is pathetic.

Steve / June 13, 2007 9:52 AM

It was perfect. Not since the ending of John Sayles' Limbo have I so enjoyed an on-screen choose-your-own-adventure. We get to project our own ending according to our own biases; mahvellous.

btw, if you've seen and believed the silly email making the rounds about how each of the potentially sinister characters in the restaurant at the end was a person who had motive to whack Tony, you've been had.

Eamon / June 13, 2007 9:55 AM

I was a little "meh" during the credits, but bit by bit I've become happier and happier with the ending. I suspect the issue is the tension between storytelling and filmmaking: leaving a story unfinished is unconscionable, but it's great TV. The fact that we're still talking about it days later is an obvious testament to its power.

Eamon / June 13, 2007 9:57 AM

Also, I can't get that damn song out of my head.

skafiend / June 13, 2007 10:15 AM

Well, since I'm the person that suggested the questions, I guess I should way in.

Frankly, to me, it sucked. What's the point of constructing such nuanced, intricate characterization through seven years (it was seven, right?) only to get to the very end and say, "Eh, fuck it, you come up with the ending." That was the equivalent of those cheesy 50s sci-fi movies where the slap the words "The End" on the screen, only to be followed by a slowly growing question mark at the end of the sentence.

Don't get me wrong, I love things that are open to interpretation in art, but interpretation as far as "what does it mean?" not, "What the fuck happened?" Leaving out a major plot point is heinous. And to call it a "finale" when I'd bet my mother than there will be a movie or a resurrection of the series (no matter what David Chase says) is BS.

But hey, let's leave everything open-ended and subject to interpretation. Maybe Ahab should just raise his harpoon and just as he's about to thrown it, Melville ends the story. Maybe Scarlett should just have said, "As God as my witness..." Maybe Slim Pickens should have just kept jumping on that bomb into eternity, then we would never have to been bothered with laughing at the idea of the president and the joint chiefs of staff planning to live in underground bunker full of hot women to wait out the nuclear fallout.

As you can probably tell, I was less than pleased.

skafiend / June 13, 2007 10:17 AM

I meant to say "weight in"...

Bill V / June 13, 2007 10:28 AM

I hate Journey and am just starting on episode #1, so don't ruin the ending for me!

Seriously, that kind of an ending sucks, it's the writer's etc. taking the easy way out. Maybe they could have wrote three different endings and showed them all?!? That would have been more fun.

Allan / June 13, 2007 10:37 AM

Who can afford cable? It was on cable right? Do that many people have cable? If eating ramen noodles and Aldi green beans in my three year old underwear was not enough, now I really feel poor.

paul / June 13, 2007 10:49 AM

Didn't see it.

I'm paying $130 bucks a month for cable (with internet) and don't even get the one HBO station. A boring soap opera about NJ isn't worth paying more.

Anybody watch the season finale of the Shield?

skafiend / June 13, 2007 11:11 AM

Allen...

Just glance at the TV while your peeping in windows. Kill two birds with one stone...

Paul..

You're paying $130 a month for cable and internet and not even getting HBO? You're getting rooked, my friend. And I gotta say, the Sopranos was just as intriguing as The Shield.

And one final thing.. the silence thing. When I watched the finale on Monday, the silence continued way into the next show, Big Love. I kept it there for about 10 minutes thinking it was going to end, but it kept going. Did this happen on the original showing of the finale? Or did my cable just suck?

printdude / June 13, 2007 11:16 AM

Fucking brillant.

Tony's Dead you schmucks

His daddy died outside the same restaurant while he was have a hard time parallel parking the car. (oh The Humor!)
And tony said, when you die, you never see it coming, and it just goes black. Nothing.

He's dead, and I suspect most of the family, too, save for the bad parker.

Mac / June 13, 2007 12:09 PM

What is this "Sopranos"?
HBO had a series on Opera Singers?
Did the fat lady sing?

Josh / June 13, 2007 12:14 PM

My first reaction was "not brilliant, not genius, but indeed perfect." Now I think it's both brilliant and perfect. Did Tony get whacked? Did the whole family get whacked? Did David Chase whack the audience? Did Meadow just sit down and eat an onion ring? It's which ever answer you wish.

I loved seeing Paulie remain loyal, and I hated seeing the injured Silvio thread unresolved. The last two minutes were intense, I was freaking out. When the screen cut to black, it was obvious right away that's how it was supposed to end.

That's how we'll remember him spending the rest of his life..always with an eye on the door to see who's coming and who's going...always with the love of his family serving as an anchor while he puts them in nearby danger...always waiting for a middle-aged man with a large nose and a Members Only jacket to emerge with a firearm. The ending confirms that Tony is in hell, and hell for him is being Tony Soprano.

skafiend / June 13, 2007 12:38 PM

Printdude...

didn't know the thing about his father dying in the same restaurant.

And, yeah, didn't Bobby say the thing about "it just goes black" in the next to last episode?

Still, nothing says that Tony's absolutely dead.

Now if Chase comes back with a "follow-up", either a movie or restart the series, will this ending still be "brilliant" or a cop out (no pun intended)?

Eamon / June 13, 2007 1:32 PM

Okay, okay, last post: I found this interview with David Chase pretty interesting.

eep / June 13, 2007 2:17 PM

I'm with Paul. Cable + internet is already way too expensive -- I can't afford premium stations. Maybe I'll rent The Sopranos some day. Maybe.

mike-ts / June 13, 2007 2:27 PM

Watching for the past two seasons was a chore, and a colossal bore. I stuck with it for no other reasons than to see how it all ends, and the ending was terrible.

I didn't want a launch point into fanfic, I didn't want a d.i.y., I do enough stuff myself. I wanted a definite ending for the climactic buildup. That the end result of this way of living is this.

I'm just happy Tony didn't wake up to get the newspaper at the foot of some driveway in Arizona in his Blue Heaven. At least I didn't see Tony get to win in any way.

holden / June 13, 2007 10:19 PM

i've never seen a single episode, even when i did have HBO. now that i'm down to 20 channels, i spent my limited TV time checking out Scrubs reruns and Deadliest Catch on Discovery.

charlie / June 14, 2007 7:22 AM

It's over?

Spook / June 14, 2007 10:13 AM

"Allen.....
Just glance at the TV while your peeping in windows. Kill two birds with one stone..."

That was some funny sh*t Ska, Paulie Wallnuts himself would be pleased. Ohhhhhhhhhhh!

p.s Allan your not poor, you're pervert rich! I think we should take up a collection for that Popeyes turkey you're so fond of
to cheer you up!
But only if you eat it all at once

Jeff / June 14, 2007 11:06 AM

I, for one, liked it for the reasons stated below.

A couple of possible interpretations; in order from most likely to least likely:

1) Tony has been killed. Chase, et al, have usually been pretty solid about cluing us in so that after the fact we can follow their breadcrumbs. All the references to "lights out" when someone dies is a kind of big clue, as are the "turn the lights out when you're done" Doors tune and other cues. Tony is done. Lights out. I liked the buildup and the relative restraint -- tension built, no doubt, but the ending did not have to be graphic.

2) Tony has lived -- and things just keep on going. They "don't stop," merely because we are not there. Another big theme in Chase's work has been the circular (not "unchanging," but circular) nature of these characters. Tony is back to his old self -- trying to surround himself with the "normalcy" of family while simultaneously trying to fend off the threats inherent in the grim business he has chosen. The building tension shows gives us a glimpse of Tony's thought process: he is tense, paranoid. Every door that rings is the anticipation of either family (Meadow?) or deadly threat (a killer?). He sizes up everybody and everything -- Member's Only might be a patron getting an ice cream or a cold-blooded killer. Odds seem 50/50 either way. We leave, but Tony remains in his own little hell.

3) Someone suggested this was a dream sequence, but that seems unlikely -- Chase usually tips his hand pretty heavily when we are with Tony on one of his subconscious trips.

I think #1 is most likely; #2 is somewhat possible, and #3 is right out. #1 and #2 reinforce a number of the themes and motifs that have been consistent in this series. I think the explanation is all there, and actually pretty straight-forward, if you look for it.