Sopranos 6/10 -- THE END

Complete and utter bullshit. That's exactly what he was doing. The fucker.

 

A coworker and I had this discussion today. I didn't perceive the lines "Don't stop believin' " to be the key lines from the song; rather, as has been discussed here several times, the payoff lines from that song are:

"Some will win
Some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on ..."

Even if those weren't the words we heard just before the abrupt stop, I think those words -- and not the three words in the title -- held any meaning Chase might have intended for us.

A friend of mine (not Birdscribe) was on "Jeopardy" a few years ago. When she got home, she put a clip from "I Lost on Jeopardy" as part of her outgoing message on her telephone answering machine. She didn't hit people over the head with it, though; instead, she used lines that didn't repeat the title (and chorus) of the song.

I thought of that when the discussion of the Journey lyrics came up last night. If you get too hung up on the three words in the title, you might miss the real reason Chase used that song. If I thought his message was "don't stop believing," I'd consider it cheesy too.

 

Boobie --

The Russian died. Someone else stole the car. Things happen.

The question of the Russian became a bit of a parlor game among fans of the show. Those who were wed to the plot insisted he had to return. Those who realized a comically brilliant one-off that wasn't very important to the actual mission of the show didn't think so.

The latter turned out to be correct. Chase never came out and said the Russian was dead, but he also delights in fucking with people.

 

This could start a huge thread jack and I'm really not interested enough to get into one, but has Chase ever come out and said the Russian is dead? Do we even know he got shot in the head? Christopher and Paulie seem convinced of it, but the guy kept running afterward. In my mind if you're going to die from a gun shot wound to the head it'd be a pretty immediate occurrence and not something that would happen a few hours later after running away for a while. I can't remember the episode perfectly, but didn't Christopher and Paulie's car get stolen? Doesn't seem like there would be a lot of other suspects in the middle of the woods.

I see Zeke addressed my questions. I'm going to have to agree to disagree one what happened to the Russian and it being a minor storyline... why even bother with in the first place then? It just becomes more difficult to agree to disagree when some act like they're on some higher intellectual plane with Chase and understand everything he does and dismiss anyone who challenges him, especially because everyone is just guessing along with him and trying to look smart by lauding whatever he does.

 

This is true.

THIS:

is false.

 

BTW, Pine Barrens is on A&E right now.

 

Remember the death montage before the season? The Russian flashes on the screen, and then a question mark appears next to his name. That was certainly done to have fun with the ongoing dead-or-alive debate.

 

And almost over, apparently.
But, in my time zone, it will be on again in less than 3 hours.

 

The Russian disappeared. He either died, escaped or is still up in a tree.

It doesn't matter.

People pop in and out of your life. That's an existential fact. They show up, you have some sort of encounter and they they disappear.

That beautiful Australian woman I met in Paris in 1972 isn't going to show up all of a sudden and ask me to marry her. Besides, HC would be some pissed if she did.

 

I may be dumb. But thank God I'm not one of these idiots who is on the local network grumbling about how there wasn't a more violent finale.

Oh and fuck Dick Brennan, another dopey talking head from the local Fox affiliate who is sitting at the restaurant and saying how grateful he is there's no Journey to be played on his jukebox. Suck my dick, Dick.

 

It's going to be a long summer. Maybe instead of the next SportsJournalists.com novel, we can write another "Sopranos" episode or the rest of the last episode ... complete with about 50 alternate endings. That wouldn't turn violent, would it?

 

This is the line of thinking that I just don't get. "People pop in and out of your life"... a girl you talked to one night at a bar would seem to be a little different than a mobster you tried to murder. The thing that just doesn't fly with me is that even if he is dead don't you think the Russian mob could figure out what might have happened, and would they really be willing to "disappear" from Tony and crew's lives after one of their own was killed?

I don't think he needed to come out and kill Tony in the final scene. I do think it was sloppy that it was never dealt with again. I just don't see what the point of the episode was unless Chase intended to mess with fans.