As every writer knows, beginnings are hard.
Endings are perhaps even harder.
So how hard is it to satisfyingly end a series like The Sopranos? If you like the show, you already know what happened; if you don’t like it, you don’t care. But one measure of just how unsatisfying many viewers found the finale can be gained by conducting this Google Blog Search: SOPRANOS FINALE WTF.
Scroll down to the page that contains entries from the minutes after the show aired. If the Smithsonian or anyone else ever wants to create a time capsule to mark the strong, strange hold that this show exerted on the American public, that Google page should be included.
10 Comments
David Chase gave (all of) us what we wanted. The screen went blank (for five long seconds) at the crucial end. . . Bring your own conclusion to the ending. Believe what you want to believe. This way no one is disappointed. How clever!
Seeing Meadow walk in the door is the last thing he sees at the end, or at the beginning of the rest of his life. That’s how I call it on Father’s Day!
However, if there was a killing (of the end,) it was as if the ‘killer(s)’ were anxiously waiting for Meadow to arrive . . . so the entire family is there to witness it, or the entire family is wiped out. But “focus on the good times,” and remember them as they should be remembered. The ‘family’ is alive and well. And they will go on living as usual. We just won’t be able to watch them doing it anymore.
— metinDarn, I was hoping it would end with Tony waking up in bed with Suzanne Pleshette saying he had the weirdest dream. He then proceeds to put on a suit and goes to his job as a prtner in a white shoe law firm.
— ray“You probably don’t even hear it when it happens, right?” - Bobby Bacala
I think Tony is gone. The show was always seen from his perspective and I suspect when you get whacked, thats what you see and hear…nothing.
Great finale.
— hblizzard#3, I like your idea about the ending, but I very much must disagree that ‘the show was always seen from his perspective.’ It’s not like the show is ‘Scrubs’ with the internal monologue and there have been many story line that don’t directly involve Tony. This is why I think the ending is best decscribed by the words ‘turd sandwich.’ Don’t get me wrong, great, great show. Just too bad that the ending had to be so pretentious.
— chappy8The very fact that the ending has elicited so many strong reactions just shows how wonderful the ending was.
I, for one, was gleefully happy that Chase didn’t end his show in a sea of gunfire or other tired hollywood endings.
(even considering the number of potential hitmen -i counted at least 4 in my one viewing- in the restaurant at that time, I believed he lived)
— yoshi#1, Not to be a jerk or anything, but your last few sentences looked familiar. From http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/10/sopranos.finale.ap/index.html
“The finale displayed their lives continuing, for better and worse, unaffected by the fact that the series is done. The implication was, they will go on as usual. We just won’t be able to watch.”
— oddTodd#5, “The very fact that the ending has elicited so many strong reactions just shows how wonderful the ending was.”
I think this is just another way to say the show was popular. Cheers was a popular show, but the reaction (at least as I remember) was that it was a ‘great’ ending.
I’m all for people having their own interpretation of the ending–and I still think it was a great show overall–but I’m sorry, but establishing that Meadow can’t park and making half of America think that their cable went out is not good television on any level.
— chappy8This was the best ending to a TV show ever.
— Kent#6, I am flattered that CNN used my sentiments exactly.
— metinSo what happened?? was Tony whacked?? was the diner blown up by a terrorist?? we shall never know. i was literally on the edge of my seat for the last 10 mins thinking Tony was going to get whacked!!
— jonboy