In the end and after a bit of reflection perhaps it was the perfect way to bid adieu to New Jersey’s most watched family.
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(Warning: if you're a fan and have taped the show for future viewing, STOP right here)
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With the tension of Steve Perry singing the Journey classic Don’t Stop Believin’, the last five minutes of Sunday night’s finale of the Sopranos played out with an audience anxiously on the edge of their seats. The building momentum of the tune and the lyrics of the song itself lent themselves well to the farewell that Soprano fans had been waiting for. Perry’s reflections on the will to roll the dice one more time, some will win, some will lose, some were born to sing the blues, in a nut shell it was the Sopranos life.
Played out to the increasing tempo of the song, every shift of the camera brought a new set of nerves, the guy at the counter is he there with malice or just a bad case of hunger, AJ enters the restaurant and immediately someone follows in the door behind him. Every face, a potential danger (even the boy scouts?) , strangers come in, the camera shifts to them then away, are they bit players or the final scene? The very last moments with Meadow’s entry delayed time and time again by a inability to park wrung out even more tension as she approached the restaurant, opened the door and left us all with an unexpected blank screen. View the scene here, until YouTube is told to pull it.
It leaves an unfulfilled answer to the many questions we may have, yet is perfectly in keeping with David Chase’s unorthodox approach to television these last six years.
He tied up a few loose ends for us with the finale; Phil met his demise in a most gruesome yet cartoon like way, as though shot by the roadrunner of Wily E Coyote fame. Bobby got the mobster’s funeral that was his destiny, captured in full by a collection of FBI agents.
Tony tapped his FBI well one more time, his favourite New Jersey agent somehow deciding to choose sides, tipping Soprano to the location of Phil and then when informed of the sudden demise of Phil, proclaiming that “we’re going to win this thing”, somehow we don’t think he was thinking of the war on terror here.
The family tension played out as well, Carmela in hiding while Tony tries to broker peace more concerned about her current accommodations that the risks involved in returning home, Meadow moves closer and closer to the lifestyle of her father, her romance with Patrick destined it seems for marriage and perhaps a place in the family firm for her husband. AJ still a mess, has thoughts of joining the Army and a tour of Afghanistan, instead is bought off with dreams of Hollywood and club life, a brief surge of self awareness buried amongst the strings to be pulled by his parents.
Janice, Tony’s sister now in search of a new financial plan seeks to play the Uncle Junior card, a gambit that seems to be destined to be a failure as Uncle’s dementia continues to rob him not only of his memories but of his knowledge of where the “treasure” may be buried.
Tony bids the farewells of sort he couldn’t attend to last week, pre-occupied as he was by the business of staying alive. He attends Bobby’s funeral, visits the gravely wounded Silvio in hospital and returns to visit Uncle Junior.
It is a visit which brings the aging uncle and nephew together, family still by name but more strangers than ever before. The state of the uncle’s mental health is such that he’s been robbed of any past glories and has no recall of his nephew or any past transgressions and clearly is no threat to Tony what so ever anymore.
Tony tries to remind him of the glory days with his brother when “they ran North Jersey”, but it doesn’t seem to register on the lost old man in the wheel chair. Nor does the warning about Janice and her maneuvering to steal whatever money that Uncle Junior may have, if he ever remembers where he buried it.
The final meeting with Uncle Junior leads to the climactic restaurant scene, Tony flips through the juke box of the old style diner, running through a list of songs; most past treasures and perhaps containing a message or two, before settling on Journey, he pops his money in the slot and the piano chord begins to play out the tempo of the opening, leading to the fade to black closing.
For those that prefer their television to clear the table of the dishes and sweep the kitchen floor after the meal, Sunday will be a night of great disappointment. We’re left staring at the television wondering if the satellite dish went out, or if Movie Central lost the signal for the final nerve jangling seconds.
Yet the process used by Chase is like life in the mob as we’ve come to understand it all these years, you never seem to see what’s coming, or when it does.
But like witnesses to a mob hit, we’ll be talking about the ending for years to come, everyone will have a theory, some will have the family taken out, others no doubt vision an arrest from the FBI and some will just have the family sit down to dinner, another episode ending like all the others in this riveting series, Tony, Carm, AJ and Meadow, carrying on with their dysfunctional lives, without those millions of voyeurs hovering over their shoulders every Sunday night.
.
With the tension of Steve Perry singing the Journey classic Don’t Stop Believin’, the last five minutes of Sunday night’s finale of the Sopranos played out with an audience anxiously on the edge of their seats. The building momentum of the tune and the lyrics of the song itself lent themselves well to the farewell that Soprano fans had been waiting for. Perry’s reflections on the will to roll the dice one more time, some will win, some will lose, some were born to sing the blues, in a nut shell it was the Sopranos life.
Played out to the increasing tempo of the song, every shift of the camera brought a new set of nerves, the guy at the counter is he there with malice or just a bad case of hunger, AJ enters the restaurant and immediately someone follows in the door behind him. Every face, a potential danger (even the boy scouts?) , strangers come in, the camera shifts to them then away, are they bit players or the final scene? The very last moments with Meadow’s entry delayed time and time again by a inability to park wrung out even more tension as she approached the restaurant, opened the door and left us all with an unexpected blank screen. View the scene here, until YouTube is told to pull it.
It leaves an unfulfilled answer to the many questions we may have, yet is perfectly in keeping with David Chase’s unorthodox approach to television these last six years.
He tied up a few loose ends for us with the finale; Phil met his demise in a most gruesome yet cartoon like way, as though shot by the roadrunner of Wily E Coyote fame. Bobby got the mobster’s funeral that was his destiny, captured in full by a collection of FBI agents.
Tony tapped his FBI well one more time, his favourite New Jersey agent somehow deciding to choose sides, tipping Soprano to the location of Phil and then when informed of the sudden demise of Phil, proclaiming that “we’re going to win this thing”, somehow we don’t think he was thinking of the war on terror here.
The family tension played out as well, Carmela in hiding while Tony tries to broker peace more concerned about her current accommodations that the risks involved in returning home, Meadow moves closer and closer to the lifestyle of her father, her romance with Patrick destined it seems for marriage and perhaps a place in the family firm for her husband. AJ still a mess, has thoughts of joining the Army and a tour of Afghanistan, instead is bought off with dreams of Hollywood and club life, a brief surge of self awareness buried amongst the strings to be pulled by his parents.
Janice, Tony’s sister now in search of a new financial plan seeks to play the Uncle Junior card, a gambit that seems to be destined to be a failure as Uncle’s dementia continues to rob him not only of his memories but of his knowledge of where the “treasure” may be buried.
Tony bids the farewells of sort he couldn’t attend to last week, pre-occupied as he was by the business of staying alive. He attends Bobby’s funeral, visits the gravely wounded Silvio in hospital and returns to visit Uncle Junior.
It is a visit which brings the aging uncle and nephew together, family still by name but more strangers than ever before. The state of the uncle’s mental health is such that he’s been robbed of any past glories and has no recall of his nephew or any past transgressions and clearly is no threat to Tony what so ever anymore.
Tony tries to remind him of the glory days with his brother when “they ran North Jersey”, but it doesn’t seem to register on the lost old man in the wheel chair. Nor does the warning about Janice and her maneuvering to steal whatever money that Uncle Junior may have, if he ever remembers where he buried it.
The final meeting with Uncle Junior leads to the climactic restaurant scene, Tony flips through the juke box of the old style diner, running through a list of songs; most past treasures and perhaps containing a message or two, before settling on Journey, he pops his money in the slot and the piano chord begins to play out the tempo of the opening, leading to the fade to black closing.
For those that prefer their television to clear the table of the dishes and sweep the kitchen floor after the meal, Sunday will be a night of great disappointment. We’re left staring at the television wondering if the satellite dish went out, or if Movie Central lost the signal for the final nerve jangling seconds.
Yet the process used by Chase is like life in the mob as we’ve come to understand it all these years, you never seem to see what’s coming, or when it does.
But like witnesses to a mob hit, we’ll be talking about the ending for years to come, everyone will have a theory, some will have the family taken out, others no doubt vision an arrest from the FBI and some will just have the family sit down to dinner, another episode ending like all the others in this riveting series, Tony, Carm, AJ and Meadow, carrying on with their dysfunctional lives, without those millions of voyeurs hovering over their shoulders every Sunday night.
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A few spots you can go to vent your Post Sopranos depression.
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