June 11, 2007

Sopranos finale.

The Sopranos "There was no good ending, so The Sopranos left off without one," writes Alessandra Stanley in the New York Times. "Viewers are conditioned to seek a resolution, happy or sad, so it was almost fitting that this HBO series that was neither comedy nor tragedy should defy expectations in its very last moments. In that way at least The Sopranos delivered a perfectly imperfect finish."

Updated through 6/12.

"My first reaction was to say aloud, 'You son of a bitch,'" admits Tim Lucas. "But after a second viewing, I am aglow with admiration for the way David Chase handled it.... On reflection, I think it was actually a very loving exit, for both the characters and the viewing audience that has followed their family saga for the past nine years. I must say, I'm tickled by the riotous Le Sacre du Printemps-like controversy the finale has provoked."

Vince Keenan: "I liked the finale. A lot. Millions of fans didn't. Want to have a laugh? Head over to Technorati and search for 'Sopranos' and 'WTF?' You'll spend the rest of the day there."

"It's my nature." For Matt Zoller Seitz, this is

key to appreciating the final episode, and key to understanding Chase's attitude toward people; they are what they are, they rarely change, and when they do, they stay changed for as long as it takes to realize that they were more comfortable with their old selves, at which point they revert; and once they're taken out of the picture, by illness or incarceration or death, the world keeps turning without them.

Which is a roundabout way of saying, what the hell did people expect from David Chase? Closure? Satisfaction? Answers? A moral?

It was the perfect ending. No ending at all. Write your own goddamn ending.

Also at the House Next Door, Keith Uhlich rounds up links to several more takes.

"Chase wrote the episode alone, and he was clearly enjoying himself, playing on the fact that people had their own expectations — odds were Tony would get whacked — and would bring to these details what they wanted to bring," blogs Mary McNamara for the Los Angeles Times. "He even managed to insert a little lecture about the downtrodden scriptwriter through an old Twilight Zone episode playing in the background of one scene."

"The Sopranos has always been a serial mob movie about being a serial mob movie in a culture where everybody's seen a lot of mob movies (and remakes of mob movies) and even low-level Jersey mobsters imagine themselves acting like the mobsters in the movies," writes Jim Emerson, for whom the ending lives up to the show: "Perfectly, in retrospect."

"[T]he achievement of The Sopranos is not so much that it puts you in mind of Balzac or Dickens, but that here on television, for most of a decade, were tales that could stand in the company of Fassbinder, and Kieslowski, and Mike Leigh, and Chabrol," blogs Leon Wieseltier at the New Republic.

"Was Sunday night's finale Chase's way of telling us all to fuck right off?" asks Salon's Heather Havrilesky:

If so, it was fitting that the big F.U. should come from the mouth of the show's least respectable character, self-pitying, idiot-savant A.J., who explodes in an angry outburst after Bobby's funeral. Disgusted with the idle Oscar-related small talk at his table, he rages, "You people are fucked. You're living in a fucking dream!" Then he snipes that Americans distract themselves from their country's atrocious acts by "watching these jack-off fantasies on TV."

Later, after A.J. has been coaxed out of following his convictions into the military and to Afghanistan, and led into temptation by his parents with a new BMW and the promise of a cushy job working on - what else? - some crappy film cobbled together by a bunch of halfwits, he sits on the couch with his high school girlfriend, snickering at viral videos of rappin' Karl Rove and Bush dancing. There we are, America! Sending each other YouTube videos, chuckling at The Daily Show, instead of rioting in the streets. Crisis of conscience narrowly averted!

[...]

Goodbye, Tony. Looks like you won't go to prison (not yet, anyway), and you won't rat, and you won't finally get your come-uppance, dying in a bloody heap. You'll be immortalized eating onion rings, chuckling, focusing on the good times.

Just like the rest of us. Going to hell in a red leather booth, with Journey playing in the background.

"America wants closure! David Chase gave us a mirror. Bravo," writes Tom Hall.

brotherfromanother at Reverse Shot and David Lowery marvel at that final cut.

Disappointed, Slate's Timothy Noah is reminded of Frank R Stockton's 1882 short story, "The Lady or the Tiger?": "What a marvelous leaping-off point for discussion, say some people. What a stupid cop-out, say I."

Michael Z Newman, too, finds the finale "an awful disappointment."

Keith Phipps opens up an active thread at the AV Club.

Updates, 6/12: Bill Carter gathers reactions from several television writers, most of whom are mightily impressed. And blogging for the NYT, Virginia Heffernan sees the Leotardo Nephew Theory floated - and shot down.

Rounding up more reactions from all over: Richard Adams for the Guardian and Sonia Smith for Slate.

"I would argue that all those out there in TV land who have spent the last 48 hours cursing the name of series creator David Chase never really understood or appreciated what made The Sopranos so great in the first place," blogs Scott Foundas. "Contrary to the abrupt plug-pulling that some have accused it of being, the final scene of the final Sopranos was in fact a carefully plotted and ingeniously executed distillation of Chase's three greatest themes: work, death and blood ties. Nothing hasty or unplanned about it."



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Posted by dwhudson at June 11, 2007 9:06 AM

Comments

Picking Journey "Don't Stop Believing" to close the show was amazing! I foudn a list http://collegecandy.com/buzz/3398 of all the songs on the series finale from last night. worth checking it out...

Posted by: Stac at June 11, 2007 12:13 PM

The Lyrics are so fit:

"Working Hard to get my FILL (Phil? Leotardo?) - Everybody Wants a Thrill (as in the ending)"

"Some will win (live) some will lose (die), Some were BORN to Sing the Blues." (whiner AJ, always complaining)

"OH the Movie NEVER ENDS, it goes on and on and on and on...."

Posted by: UrbanTwang at June 11, 2007 1:21 PM

David Chase nailed it! He had it just right--right down to the cat with 9 lives.

Posted by: Carl at June 11, 2007 2:25 PM

Two ideas that occured to me about the Sopranos Finale.I live in Ireland so it has not been screened yet!however C B S news just revealed all(I do get C B S news on cable) First thought were we being told that we HAVE been watching the dark side all this time? or was the screen going blank an interpretation of being WHACKED? after all I believe one scene parodied the godfather just before the cafe Massacare! May be that many more cynical views about keeping the door open for more episodes/movies are too cynical?

Posted by: Patrick Jordan at June 11, 2007 5:52 PM

THAT'S why they invented TIVO!!!!

Posted by: Deja at June 11, 2007 9:21 PM

Maybe everything goes black because the viewer is being "whacked." We are no longer a part of the Soprano's ongoing lives.

Posted by: clare at June 12, 2007 1:53 AM

Pardon the self-linkage, but I have a little analysis of the cut-to-black here:
http://www.zoilus.com/documents/general/2007/001056.php

Although I like the "viewer being 'whacked' " theory too.

Posted by: carl at June 12, 2007 5:54 AM

i got a hold of 3 of the alternate endings that were filmed for the series finale:

http://krupsjustsayin.blogspot.com/2007/06/sopranos-finale-alternate-endings.html

or for the Quicktime impaired:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZjias30cnY

or here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/krup/video/x28ysv_the-sopranos-finale-the-alternate-e

or here:

http://www.vimeo.com/clip:211043

Posted by: krup at June 12, 2007 2:16 PM

Interesting stuff, as usual for GC Daily. I like your last ending best, krup. In case anyone can tolerate one more reaction to the finale, I've got one linked from my name.

Posted by: Steve Felix at June 13, 2007 5:30 PM

I was reading an interview with Gandolfini in a New Zealand metrosexual magazine last year. It was interesting. I saw the final episode today and something I read came to mind immediately. At one point the interviewer asks how James would like to see it end and he said, (I am paraphrasing and not quoting): 'Nuclear bomb... they're just doing their normal thing and that bang, nothing, that's it'. Now maybe he got his way. I really wish I could remember where I got it, but I was reading it before October 2006 and it was from 2006. Hope someone can find it.

Posted by: Gary at June 19, 2007 2:22 AM

what if chase plotted this episode (and the whole series) the way they teach in creative writing classes... putting all the clues there for all to see, so that if they ever notice them, they'll be absolutely sure that there was only one outcome. here's my theory... carmela said where they were having dinner that night in front of AJ and his new girlfriend... they were having dinner in a different place that night. now, who was this girl? what kind of a girl hangs at the home of a wanted mobster, someone in hiding of sorts trying to confuse his rivals by changing his routine. that was one clue, carmela's mistake. and you can can say that the girl could have killed them herself, but she wouldn't be given such a big job. she was there to listen. next clue: when meadow tells her dad she's going to be a lawyer because of all the times he was hauled off by the FBI... it's a clue that some good will come out of all she's lived. then there's the whole parking delay. meadow was being saved. the shifty guy was so obviooooooous. yes, absolutely, there to whack tony off. he was nervous because family kept arriving. finally, he says the hell with it, i'll whack them all, and goes to the bathroom. this of course is a godfather/joke reference. the black is meadow seeing the rest of her family killed. they all died. meadow went on to either fight the mafia in court or fight corrupt authorities. that's it and all the clues (and many more i don't have space to mention here) are in the episode. the only reason for a parking delay is so meadow is saved, which tells you the rest were killed. the only reason for girlfriend from space to be there all the time in the episode is so she could hear where they'd all be and rat them out. the only reason for AJ to have gotten so obnoxious in the last episode is so it wouldn't be a big loss if he died. the only reason for tony to make ammends with junior is because he's going to die. so on, so forth.

Posted by: anja at June 19, 2007 9:01 AM

tony was definitly killed, you have to be a huge soprano's know it all to completly understand it.. but from what i undersatdn .. THE Godfather is tony's fav. movie and in the god father there are some specific killings that take place while the victim is eating or holding an orange, also tony says he likes the scene where a dude kills some other dude while walking out of the bathroom, the guy in the members only jacket references back to the episode called "members only" the one where tony was shot... there is even some scenes that show tony in a "last supper pose" and the way they all ate the omion rings at the end is a references to catholocism, (like wafers at a communion)In Catholicism, administration of the Eucharist in the moments before death is known as Viaticum, derived in part from the Latin for… “Journey.� (considering the entire season mostly is narrated from tony's POV. the going black part must mean death.. (also there was a past episode where someone was talking about death and how it must be like going black)whether or not his fam got killed too thats somethin else.. but tony was whacked..

Posted by: jfoxx at June 21, 2007 10:43 AM