Sopranos 6/10 -- THE END

A must-read that addresses several things we've discussed.

 

Simon,

I realize that continuing to reply to you on this topic might make me a glutton for punishment. But for some reason, I feel an inexplicable urge to explain this to your satisfaction. So here's another try.

Basically, there are two major concepts you're missing (or are in denial about). Those are:

1. The Russian's death was all but certain, and his disappearance was quite plausible. Yes, we saw a glimpse of the blood trail, but we didn't survey the whole scene. We were essentially watching the whole thing through Chris and Paulie, who we all know are not the most thorough or most reliable detectives in the world. Paulie couldn't find his own shoe, or his way back to the car. There's no reason to believe they would have been able to find a dead body out there.

2. It doesn't matter anyway. Have you ever covered a game with a reporter who's obsessed with his play-by-play notes? Like, you're covering the NBA Finals, and the score is 86-47 late in the third quarter, and he asks, "Who just got the assist on that Drew Gooden layup?" I mean, I understand the desire to be meticulous, but sometimes it just prevents you from seeing the big picture.

And basically, the whereabouts of the Russian is like that Drew Gooden assist. It has no bearing on the outcome of the game. It has no place in the game story (or the sider, or the column, or the notes package). It was just a small piece that allowed everyone involved to get closer to the finish, which was the next step in Chris and Paulie's relationship.

 

Whacking Phil early exposed the viewer for the final time to Tony's paranoia. Outmanned, outmuscled, outgunned, outfinanced, the Don of North Jersey won a gangland war with a New York family. In the history of the American Mafia, that has never happened.

Johnny Boy Soprano's son should have been on top of the world. Instead, he was worrying about Carlo flipping to the feds. Rather than having the world by the short and curlies, Tone is prepping for a jail term. Or a gangland slaying.

As DoubleDown--I think--said, Phil was a minor character. He was a thorn in Tony's side, an annoyance. Just like Richie Aprile. Just like Ralph Cifaretto. Just like his mother. Just like Chrissy. He has eliminated most of the annoyances from his life, but he's still not happy. Janice is still there to aggravate him. A.J. embarrasses him. Carm's holier-than-thou act wears thin on him, because she knows where their wealth comes from. The only two people he could ever be real with were Meadow and Dr. Melfi. His therapist dumped him and his daughter is marrying into the life.

Tony is more alone than he's ever been.

 

Absolutely, good sir. Did not mean to slight you.

But since I have you attention, let me ask you this: Did the ending of the series call to mind, even in a tangential way, the ending to Seven Types of Ambiguity? Where you get to decide what you think did, or did not, happen?

 

Looks like Harris was suffering from a bit of Stockholm Syndrome:

Here's Chase on some other points about the finale and the season:

-After all the speculation that Agent Harris might turn Tony, instead we saw that Harris had turned, passing along info on Phil's whereabouts and cheering, "We're going to win this thing!" when learning of Phil's demise.

"This is based on an actual case of an FBI agent who got a little bit too partisan and excited during the Colombo wars of the '70s," says Chase of the story of Lindley DeVecchio, who supplied Harris' line.

 

Thanks for posting that. I preferred that reasoning more than the rooting-to-bust-Tony train of thought.

 

Don't patronize me. There was not a single track mark.

The show NEVER asked us to suspend reality like that.

It ... never ... did.

Tony's glass being a quarter full in one shot and than a third full in the next... THAT is a minor detail.

This was an utter suspension of reality in a show that works out every detail meticulously.

Not acknowledging it is pure Chase apologism.

 

I enjoyed the finale, got pretty much what I expected to get. My wife, however, not so happy. And she raises a good point.

Shouldn't there be significant closure in a finale?

Here's her argument: There's a reason for the story. There's a reason we're watching this TV show about this mob family. There are things happening that we find intriguing. A story of some sorts is playing out. And we've just walked away from that story as if it simply no longer interests us. The same things that have happened the first six years are happening right now, for all we know. We're just not watching them take place anymore. Why? There has to be a reason why.

It's one thing to say, "OK, we're going to watch these people for six years and then cut it off." But that's not what happened with The Sopranos. There was no time frame. There was no set number of episodes. No set time period.

We've watched Tony escape attempts on his life from his mother, his uncle, his "friends" and complete strangers. We didn't stop watching after any of those. We've watched him deal with his family and struggle to hold it all together through crisis after crisis. We never stopped watching after any of the other resolutions.

So, why did we stop now? That's what the finale failed to answer. You've showed us that we care about the things these people are doing, well .... they're still doing them. So why aren't we seeing them? You can't have it both ways. You can't say that we should be interested in this for six years, and then tell us to walk away for no apparent reason. There has to be a reason for us to walk.

The resolution doesn't have to be grand. It could be as simple as a bullet or a phone call. Had the show ended with Tony sitting in the car with Agent Harris, we would've accepted that he was flipping and life would never be the same again and we wouldn't be interested any longer. Had it ended with Tony in cuffs, headed to jail, we could've accepted that life wouldn't be the same and we wouldn't be interested any longer.

I know Chase hates providing "answers," but this isn't a case where he needed to provide a definitive answer. He just needed to provide definitive clues. Instead, he left us just the way he left us after every other episode and season -- waiting to see what happens next with this family.

 

I don't see the "Meadow is marrying into the business" thinking. What connections has Patrick ever shown to the biz, other than his father being in it? Nothing about what I saw from him gave me the impression that he was any type of a player. It seems like he's going to be a straight and narrow lawyer.

 

YES! It's funny you mention that. After I watched the finale last night, I thought, "Well, there's another ending I won't be able to get out of my head for a while."

It would have been fitting if Paulie had named his cat Empson.

 

A reader's comments down the page:

Posted by RutgersBCS on 06/11/07 at 11:52PM

I read this on the NJ.com Sopranos forum from poster "yanks08." It's a very interesting theory:

"Tony falls asleep last week in a barren room. No sheets on bed, no alrms clock, nothing. When he apparently wakes up, there are sheets on bed, a mirror, an alarm clock with music going off. None of that was in the end of last week's show. Tony dreams the whole last episode. A.J getting settled, Phil going down and agent harris cheering for him, Meadow becoming a lawyer and getting married. In the end, he sees himself sitting at the table. He is dreaming of having dinner with his family. Its ends when tony wakes up from his great dream. When A.J. says during the episode, "you are all living in a dream", that is a clue. sheets on bed, A.J's comment, and tony seeing himself at the end are all clues that the show really ended last week. This weeks episode was all a dream."



I noticed the sheets on the bed, which had none at the end of the previous episode, and my first reaction was it wasn't necessarily the morning after we'd last seen Tony in that bed. For one thing he was dressed differently too. I figured enough time had passed for him to have put sheets on the bed and a few things (like an alarm clock) in the room.

But I enjoy a good theory like this.

 

dog --

I've said it before, but I'll keep saying it:

The answer to your question is because the plot is secondary. The feeling we all got in that last scene, the feeling that built through this final mini-season, that overwhelming dread, that's the point.

We all got a taste of it from Tony's point of view, and that was the end.