Summed up quite perfectly here- from
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/11/SOPRANO.TMPNo, 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 opened like so many "Sopranos" episodes in this final season -- with Tony waking up in bed -- there was 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 waged war on Tony's New Jersey family, woke 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 woke up alive didn't mean he'd survive. And the final "Sopranos" episode never had much in the way of taut, agitating moments. A peace was brokered with New York, Phil was 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 had flipped a member of Tony's crew and were typing up subpoenas at a furious pace.
Chase had 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 was fearful of what the feds had and what a member of his crew -- Carlo -- could supply them, his attorney said flatly that trials are made to be won. So viewers were 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 met his family -- each one driving separately -- at a diner, there was an ominous sense of doom. Tony, alone at a booth, flipped through the counter jukebox and selected, appropriately enough, Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." (Music and the lyrics of the songs chosen by Chase have been an integral part of "The Sopranos," and this was 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 preceded Journey -- had to bear witness to Tony looking up, vulnerable, every time the door to the diner slammed open.
It was maddening. First, Carmela (though there was a glimpse of a woman who looked 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. arrived, he was slightly behind a man who looked for all the world like he was there to hit Tony. The man sat at the counter and periodically eyed Tony and his family. The tension rose -- highlighted by a beautifully choreographed scene where daughter Meadow arrives but has all kinds of trouble double-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 slowed 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 was 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 ended 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 cliffhanger 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 was anything different about her in that moment than any we'd seen in the previous seasons. A.J. was 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 arrived, the last of the brood, having finally and maddeningly double-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 up 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 managed, with this ending, to be true to reality (Tony's lawyer said earlier in the episode, "It's not like we haven't envisioned this day") while also steering clear of trite TV conventions. Tony wasn't killed in a blaze of gunfire. Multiple plotlines were left unresolved (like life). There was no hugging, no moral lesson, no pat ending.
It just ended. Before a lot of people wanted it to, but with a clever Chase-like nod to the unknown.
