I had the same reactions as millions of people did at the very ("Don't Stop")end of The Sopranos last night, "What's wrong with my cable?" Then what? The last 5 minutes of the show seemed to be leading up to something. The guy in the Member's Only jacket going to the can, the shifty guy in the USA cap, what's his deal? They spent as much time having Meadow park the car as they did on the Phil Leotardo killing. Then nothing, the anti-climax to end all anti-climaxes.
Or was it?
Even longtime fans forget that Soprano season finales have almost always been anticlimactic, so why should the series finale be any different? The last one, where everyone shares a holiday meal with it looking like Phil and Tony might be able to work things out and everything suspiciously tied up had a lot of people up in arms.
It's only on TV shows where major events happen at the end of a season, real life never works that way. If we were to learn anything from the way David Chase has put this landmark TV show is to not assume anything. For me, the real finale was last week, with Sil wounded and Bobby got wacked in an overtly symbolic way. It was a strangely sentimental killing in a famously unsentimental show.
So much of this season was an obliteration of any sympathy most of the main characters,even Bobby killed his first guy. Tony, after years of therapy, did things that would have been unthinkable in seasons past, most significantly the remorseless killing of Christopher. When Dr. Melfi read the report about talk therapy helping criminals become better at crime, and came to the part that described Tony to a T, She and I came to the startling realization at the same time, we've been supporting a sociopath. We were both in denial, but now we see him for what he is.
That's why, for me, the series ended last week. Sil's in a coma, Bobby's dead and the most significant relationship on the show, between Tony and Dr Melfi, ended. I knew that if Tony wasn't dead by then that it would be Phil shuffling off this mortal coil. It was either Phil or Tony, that was the only prediction I allowed myself to make. Don't you think it's telling that he hid out when he knew that Phil was after him, but lives his life as normal when he knows the feds are going to come calling?
Not being able to sleep yet again, I watched the "Early Show" on CBS. Harry Smith was talking about the show with Dalton Ross, a writer for Entertainment Weekly. It was basically a good natured sparring between the two types of Soprano fans: ones who love it's gritty nature (Harry) and ones who appreciate the story being told (Ross). I, without a doubt am in the latter category.
Maybe I'm just tired of the way movies and TV shows tell me how I'm suppose to feel and not assuming that I'm a reasonably intelligent person that when a show comes out like that it feels like such a breath of fresh air. David Chase has used few of the traditional elements most often employed in contemporary pop culture to let us make up our own minds, which is why this show, more than any other, inspire such dialog. This is what I will always love this show and David Chase for creating it.
So for Tony? Regardless of his attitude, he still has the inditements looming. Carlo's talking to the feds and if Paulie flips (which was strongly implied) it would be real trouble for our anti-hero. The term "knows where the bodies are buried" was inspired by guys like Paulie Walnuts.
Dalton Ross put it together for me on "The Early Show": with all the build-up and implication in the last 5 minutes we feel like Tony does every second. Paying too much attention to his surroundings, distracted by every ring of the front door bell to see whose coming in. Momentary diversions like Journey songs and onion rings never superseding the survival instinct. We felt it too for 8 years, but no longer.
But seriously, "Don't Stop Believin'?"
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